Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) reader (Adobe Acrobat Reader)

Member Name: ajbluestar

Product:	Adobe Acrobat Reader
Date:	30/10/09 (53 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: open a wide variety of documents easily in universal format

Disadvantages: can't edit and create /is just a reader

This is a universally used and well recognised program that many people will have on their computer. This program allows documents to be viewed on any computer regardless of what other programs you have. If the files are in pdf format they can be viewed on your computer using this program.

Adobe Reader lets you read and print from any computer system any document created as an Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) file, with its original appearance preserved. PDF files are compact in size and can be shared, viewed, navigated and printed exactly as the original author of the file intended by anyone with the Adobe Reader program.

The software is available in a number of languages and platforms and the basic version is free. To actually create and edit pdf files you will have to buy a version of the product/license in order to do so. There are three current options on their website which range from the basics of just creating and distributing pdf files (Acrobat Standard) to more advanced versions (Acrobat Pro and Acrobat Pro Extended). This is what is required if you want to produce and distribute pdf files legally for example as downloads on a website. This is not cheap though and the prices and details are avaiable here:

http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/acrobat/

Most of us though like me will mainly be involved in just viewing a number of these files. The program is especially useful when there are long journals or even e book style documents. Also on information style booklets and newsletters as well as Acrobat reader allows them to be in a universal format which can be viewed on all computers. Most people will have downloaded a pdf style file off the internet. They are then opened in Adobe Reader. Alot of the document files available for download on many websites usually have an option to download in pdf format as well as a .doc format which is the Microsoft Word version.

Overall it is a now a universally used and well recognised standard in file viewing and is probably on alot of people's computers mainly to view documents. Actually creating documents yourself may actually prove to be a bit more difficult but there are a few free pdf style creators around and you may be able to find a good one by doing a search on the internet.

Summary: universally used and well recognised standard in file viewing

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