What Does PDF Stand for?

With a seemingly endless variety of software packages available for Macintosh and PC computers, it often has been difficult for people to show other people their work in the same format in which it was made. QuarkXPress, for example, is the top desktop publishing program, but no one can see what a file made on it looks like unless he or she also has QXP. This became a problem, especially in business. So, Adobe Corp. came up with a solution.

History

Compatibility of file formats always has been a struggle. While computer users want to be able to share files, they can't always do it because it is to the computer software makers' advantage to have proprietary formats. In other words, two people in the same business may need to look at a particular file, but if only one has the software installed, this becomes difficult. This was the way of the world until 1991 when Adobe used its existing technologies to create a format that could, essentially, eliminate the problem.

Function

What Adobe did was create its Portable Document Format (PDF) file system. This system allows all the disparate items of a file, from images and text to fonts and graphs, to be encapsulated into one file. Creating a PDF essentially takes a high-resolution snapshot of all the data in a file and makes a read-only version for others to view and/or print, no matter what programs they own or on what computer platform they operate.

Considerations

Take, for example, the QuarkXPress document suggested above. A given QXP document will contain low-resolution representations of photos and other images as well as various fonts and graphic design elements. In order to keep the files smaller and manageable, QXP creates an invisible link from its images to the full-resolution image stores elsewhere. Printing a QXP document that has lost its links to images or fonts will create a low-quality, low-resolution print. And, if you want to see the document as designed on another computer, you are out of luck if you don't have QXP on it. This also is true for other, simpler programs such as Microsoft Words or Microsoft Excel. This means only people with the same software can view the files.

Types

PDF solves this by taking every bit of a file, from the high-res images to full-res fonts, along with the exact look of the document and embeds it all into one single file. Since it all is embedded, the files are larger than their comparable QXP files, but they are complete. The look will be an exact match for the original.

Effects

Because Adobe made its Adobe Reader program free to all, anyone anywhere can open and read PDF files. This means no outlay of money for software just to look at high-end files. PDFs will open anywhere the free Reader is installed. To prevent illegal theft of intellectual property, however, programs that create PDFs, including Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator and QuarkXPress, among many others, can install safeguards. A PDF can be protected from copying, printing or saving. They also can be used as fill-in-the-blanks forms, such as those issued by the Internal Revenue Service.