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PDF Know-How

Creating documents for online use can be a huge task for many web-based businesses. Many companies struggle with compatibility, integrating graphics and creating the right overall effect with their documents.

Many businesses are turning to PDF to create forms, brochures, and other documents for online use and exchange. This allows them to create print quality displays that are accessible by users on a variety of different software platforms. PDF gives companies a broader reach with their online content.

What Is PDF?

PDF stands for Portable Document Format, which is a formatting type developed by Adobe. PDF documents have the same formatting capabilities and properties of printed documents, while remaining a digital file. They are viewable in various software programs, which are supported by nearly every operating system. Of these software types, Adobe Acrobat Reader is the most popular, but certainly not the only choice.

Benefits of PDF

There are many benefits for businesses that choose to use PDF to create their online documents, including:

• Quick and easy document creation, with a point and click user interface
• The ability to secure documents, allowing access limits to other users
• The ability to compress oversized documents into more manageable sizes
• Documents are self-contained, not relying on software or operating systems to maintain consistency.

Using PDF

Businesses can create files with identical formatting and graphics to printed documents. Either they can use a PDF creator, such as Adobe, to build their document from scratch or they can use one of many PDF converters to develop PDF documents from files from other word processing systems.

Smaller businesses may benefit from using a converter and creating their documents in existing desktop publishing software. Once the documents are complete, they can simply switch them to a PDF format within their converter.

Reading PDF files is as simple has having Adobe or another PDF reader installed on your computer. You simply open the desired file in the reader and use the tools and buttons to browse the document, similar to reading a book or magazine. You can also print entire documents or selected pages for a high quality offline copy of your document.

Free PDF Converters

There are many available PDF converters, in both free and paid formats. Here are some of the better free options:

• Primo PDF (Windows)
• Do PDF (Windows)
• PDF Converter (Web-Based, Windows)
• Bee Documents Text to PDF Converter (Mac)
• PDF Toolkit (Linux)

While PDF files might seem a bit alien to those used to a word processing system such as Word, the benefits and uses are endless. For your next online document project, consider switching to a PDF format and see the amazing difference in quality and function.