Know Your PDF
FAQs | Glossary Of Terms | How-To Articles
A great, yet cryptic, philosopher king once said:
"To know PDF is to know the universe."
Is this true, you expectantly ask? Is this really
true? Well no, sadly it is not. But don't be disheartened,
for the truth about PDF is of far more practical
value (albeit far less philosophical value). In
truth, to know PDF is to know a dynamic and versatile
file format that can dramatically simplify and
expedite document viewing, integration, and printing.
So while it might not bring epiphany, PDF can
most certainly bring efficiency.
And now we get to the "knowing" part.
First off, the letters P, D, and F compose a file
extension-one of those three-letter codes that
appear at the end of file names (like know_pdf_story.pdf).
This extension is like a little file recipe; it
describes the file ingredients and tells your
operating system how to prepare it for (electronic)
consumption. Like most file extensions, PDF is
also an acronym: short for Adobe Portable Document
Format. Adobe PDF is widely used by publishers,
web writers, graphic designers, and everyday laypersons;
and is generally accepted as the preeminent format
for universal document exchange. But why is PDF
so popular? PDF's popularity and power originate
from its five key attributes:
Compatible: PDF is a cross-platform file format.
This means that PDF can be used to recreate documents
irrespective of where they were originally created.
Also, PDF will preserve the document's original
style and formatting (including color, font, and
imagery) exactly as they were intended to be seen.
With Adobe Acrobat Reader, virtually anyone, on
any computer, with any platform, running any application
version, can recognize, read, and print identical
PDF files. Anyone. You included.
Active: PDF files are highly navigable-this
means you can sail around documents like a
mini-Magellan. PDF files contain highly useful
navigation tools like: internal and external links,
structured bookmarks, search capabilities, thumbnail
page views, multi-directional buttons, magnification
options, and more.
Accurate: PDF files are both ultra-printable
and ultra-viewable. PDF utilizes the PostScript
language-imaging model-you know about the PostScript
imaging model, right? No? Good. It would scare
me if you did. Just remember that PDF ensures
true, faithful, and crisp printing-the kind of
printing you like. Also, PDF files viewed on-screen
retain precise color regardless of software or
hardware variation, and also retain precise clarity
in magnifications upward of 500%.
Convenient: PDF files are both smaller in size
than original source files (e.g. potentially 20%
as large as HTML files) and easier to download
and view. PDF documents also offer page-at-a-time
downloading; allowing you to read and revise the
early pages of a document before the entirety
has been received. Further, because of their economical
size, you'll download the whole document quicker
than you would a source file anyway. Because of
these convenient characteristics, PDF files are
often referred to as 7-11 files. Not really, though.
Someone might laugh at you if you called them
7-11 files.
Secure: PDF offers extensive security protections.
Users can assign security passwords to PDF documents
before sending them to maintain strict control
over sensitive information. Further, PDF files
can be authenticated and secured with digital
signature technology. A PDF feature known as SelfSign
enables creators and users to restrict and track
access to critical documents through the use of
an encoded digital signature. This feature also
enables users to say cool things like, "Sorry,
Glen. It seems you're not authorized to view this
material."
Enough already, you say, I accept that PDF is
divinely inspired. Clearly, the multiple benefits
of PDF have now been sufficiently revealed. But
we've been talking about PDF files in the prime
of their lives-where, you might ask, do new PDF
files come from? Well, Timmy, it's complicated.
When two computer applications love each other
very much.oops, different question. Actually,
there are five primary methods for creating PDF
files.
- Adobe Acrobat: main Adobe software for the
creation and modification of PDF files. Allows
users to create a PDF file by simply dropping-and-dragging
a document into Acrobat, choosing the format
directly from Microsoft Office, or converting
scanned or web documents directly, among other
methods.
- Adobe PDF Writer: software that mimics a
printer driver to create PDF documents from
nearly any Windows application.
- Adobe Acrobat Distiller: software for workgroup-oriented,
automated high-volume conversion of PostScript
files to PDF.
- Adobe Acrobat Capture: software designed
specifically for the conversion of scanned image
files to PDF-optimized for character recognition
and clean-up.
- Other software: other Adobe graphical and
publishing software such as FrameMaker, PageMaker,
and Illustrator can be used to automatically
create PDF files. Also, a surplus of third party
software like EZ-PDF, ActivePDF Printer, and
even QuarkXPress offer PDF creation capability.
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