PDF stands for Portable Document Format. This is the preferred format for digital printers to print from. A PDF is a format that allows a document to be opened and printed by a Mac or a PC without changing the appearance of the document. When creating a PDF it is important to make sure that you embed all the fonts.

Adobe Reader 7.0 is supported by the later Windows® platforms (Windows 2000 with Service Pack 2, Windows XP Professional or Home Edition, or Windows XP Tablet PC Edition), Mac OS X v.10.2.8 or 10.3, Palm OS® 3.0 (or later) and Pocket PC 2002 or 2003 platforms for handheld devices, Symbian OS™, Linux®, AIX®, HP/UX, and Solaris™.

A PDF file (PDF stands for "portable document format") is one created by Adobe's Acrobat software. It displays text in a reader-friendly format - as if it had been created by a word processor or desktop publisher. The reason that it's so portable though is that it can be downloaded readily for screen display or printing by your Web browser and read by any computer that has the free Adobe Acrobat Reader software installed - it doesn't matter if your computer is a PC or a Mac. And yes .

For your home PC, the easiest way is to buy the full Adobe Acrobat package. Of course, this isn't free (at last check it was $70 or so at the software cellar), so here are several other ways to go about it. On the unix side, you have two options, both of which require a postscript file first. One is to use ps2pdf, as in ps2pdf blah.ps blah.pdf Another is to use the old Acrobat package which we have for the Sun machines, like so: distill -embedallfonts on -maxsubsetpct 100 blah.

PDF authors using Adobe LiveCycle™ enterprise server and design software can activate special features in their documents that provide additional functionality. These enabled Adobe PDF files allow people with Adobe Reader to save the file to a local hard drive, fill out forms, add comments and other markups, share it with others, and submit a completed document electronically.

No. You cannot make permanent changes to PDF files using Adobe Reader; however you can perform many edit-like functions using Adobe Reader if the author has enabled these functions using Acrobat 7.0 Professional. For example, you can highlight text and add comments on sticky notes. If you're looking to create and exchange documents, collect and compare comments, and tailor file security to distribute reliable and polished Adobe PDF documents, look into using Adobe Acrobat software.

Adobe Acrobat 7.0 supports encryption and password protection for added security. A PDF file can be made uneditable by the author so that he or she can specify changes a recipient is allowed to make, such as filling in and signing forms. There are security settings to restrict editing, printing, and extracting content. PDF file authors can also add watermarks to communicate the nature of the document (for example, "confidential" or "draft").

Adobe Reader is a stand-alone application that you can use to open, view, search, and print PDF files. If you're looking to create and exchange documents, collect and compare comments, and tailor file security to distribute reliable and polished Adobe PDF documents, look into using Adobe Acrobat. When the PDF author has enabled these capabilities in Acrobat 7.0 Professional or Adobe LiveCycle software, Adobe Reader 7.0 reviewers will be alerted that the document is enabled for review and markup.