Know Your PDF
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.
1. 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.
2. Adobe PDF Writer: software that mimics a printer
driver to create PDF documents from nearly any Windows application.
3. Adobe Acrobat Distiller: software for
workgroup-oriented, automated high-volume conversion of PostScript files to
PDF.
4. Adobe Acrobat Capture: software designed specifically
for the conversion of scanned image files to PDF—optimized for character
recognition and clean-up.
5. 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.
GET STARTED NOW!
Call ADVANCE GRAPHICS at 8950076650 to speak to one of
our Marketing Specialists.Or email us at mintusudan@gmail.com
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