Mary Harboe
03.09.07

PDF
Portable Document Format

What is it :  A PDF captures all the elements of a printed document as an electronic image that you can view, navigate, print or forward to someone.  PDF files are created using Adobe Acrobat.  To view and use PDFs you need the free Adobe Reader, which you can easily download.  The PDF will then automatically open in the Reader.

PDFs keep the exact format of the file, i.e. fonts, numerical figures, layout etc.

Ever try to send a word file to someone who does not have the program. Well if it were a PDF file they would have no problem opening and viewing it in its exact format. PDFs are used by banks, airlines and most tech manuals etc.

Adobe Acrobat is quite costly but there is a way to make PDF files from free software available on the Web.  One such software is primopdf.com

It is completely free not just a trial version - a free tool for high- quality PDF creation the enables printing to PDF from any Windows application. You can also encrypt the file and  merge two PDFs upon conversion.