Reading and Creating PDF Documents
PDF (Portable Document Format) is a file format developed by Adobe as a means of distributing compact, platform-independent documents. It is superficially similar to HTML; a PDF document may contain images and text, as well as hyperlinks. However, as PDF is based on a variant of PostScript, each document is self-contained, packing text, graphics, and fonts into a single file. With the aid of Adobe Acrobat, many word processing and desktop publishing applications can be used to create PDF files. For this reason, and because PDF documents are web accessible, yet display exactly as intended, print publishers often favor PDF over HTML.
PDF is cross-platform, indexable, universally printable, universally viewable, secure and more compact than other document formats.
CROSS-PLATFORM: PDF files can be created on one type of computer and read and printed on another. The file format is independent of the software, hardware, and the operating system used to create the file. In simple words; you can, for example, read a PDF document in Windows that was created on a Macintosh that you downloaded from a web site running Linux.
INDEXABLE: PDF files can contain physical links to different parts of the document. This allows users to quickly jump about the document, from one part of the document to another, following a particular topic. Such links include jumps to specified pages within the document or externally, for example linking to pages on an external document across the internet. Another important type of link is the bookmark. These can be displayed in a window down the side of the document, where they act as contents pages. Thumbnails provide a useful method of searching for pictures and diagrams in a document.
UNIVERSALLY PRINTABLE: PDF files are based on the PostScript language imaging model. This enables sharp, colour-precise printing on almost all printers. Being PostScript based means that PDF files are an acceptable medium for supplying art work to print companies.
ULTRA-VIEWABLE: On computer screens PDF files have a precise colour match regardless of the monitor used. They allow the user to magnify documents up to 800% without loss of clarity in text or graphics.
SMALLER: PDF files are very compact. They can, for example, be 1/5 of the size of their HTML counterpart and in most cases will be similarly smaller than word processor or drawing package files.
Live URL links can be incorporated into documents.
PDF files have many of the same benefits as HTML documents in terms of being a compact medium for recreating graphically rich pages. They have the additional benefit that, unlike HTML documents, PDF files are not dependent on the author and the recipient having identical fonts and settings on their computers.
PDF files can be viewed within all major current web browsers in windows. They have the additional benefit over the HTML format that they can be saved for off-line viewing and printing.
PDF files can be byte served over the web to speed up access to large amounts of information. This process is similar to the process of streaming of video files, so you don’t have to download the full file before you can use/view it. After grabbing the first part of data, page-on-demand continues to download the rest of the file. What this means is that a visitor to a website could read the first page and then jump immediately to the seventh page without having to wait!
Full-text search capabilities are available for PDF files.
PDF pages can, when created with the proper software,be password protected. For example, you can require a password to open and view the file but equally you could allow files to be opened and viewed but not copied from or printed without a password. This flexibility makes PDFs the ideal medium for publishing material (e-books) on the Internet.
The following 2 videos demonstrate:
- Recommended software for reading & printing PDF files-Adobe Reader and Foxit Reader.
- A recommended utility-DoPDF- for creating basic PDF files from within any of your applications (that have a print function).
1.Foxit pdf reader:
2.doPDF creator:
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