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Well
it seems ages since the group last met. So casting my mind back
to that last meeting, we had a very interesting presentation on
Adobe Acrobat given by Derek Kerr.
Adobe
Acrobat in its basic form is a document reader that will read
any document present as a .pdf (portable document format) file.
Why bother you may ask, after all there must be hundreds of document
readers available, some free, others part of more professional
packages. As most of you will know, sometimes what you get on
the screen bears no resemblance to the original format and deciphering
becomes a chore. This is where the portable document format comes
into its own.
PDF
files offer the following properties :–
Preserves the look and integrity of the original document.
Ability to share documents with anybody.
Easy to use.
Offers a more secure document exchange.
Searchable
Accessible
The
ability to be able to read a common document format across different
machine platforms makes the .pdf file invaluable. Documents created
on a PC are easily read on a Mac and vice versa. Integrity and
style are preserved to ensure total compatibility. Documents can
be zoomed to high levels without any loss of quality and the original
can be locked to preserve content.
So
to read a .pdf file, one needs a reader. The most obvious is Adobe
Acrobat, which is a free download from the Adobe site and is currently
on version 7. Free updates are readily available so there is little
excuse for not having the latest version. You can either get it
from the Adobe website at www.adobe.com or off any of the numerous
magazine cover disks. It seems to be a standard utility package
on most cover disks.
You
will probably be coming across .pdf files more and more. Very
often these days, software manufacturers dispense with hard copy
manuals and supply all the information on disk as .pdf files.
So if you have not got Acrobat Reader installed, you really ought
to consider putting it on your machine.
Now
the free Acrobat Reader will as its name implies, only read a
document. If you want to create your own files then something
much more sophisticated is available from Adobe and that is Adobe
Acrobat Professional, which is currently on version 7. It also
comes with a $450 price tag - Adobe software does not come cheap!
I
am sure there must be a number of shareware or freeware .pdf writers
out there that will do a good job in creating these files, however,
for the ultimate document creator Acrobat Professional is king.
Acrobat Professional is not a document writer – this is
left to the standard word processor packages. It will however
take in documents or information from a number of platforms including
files, multiple documents, scanned images and web pages. Here
we are able to put together a .pdf file containing text and/or
graphics. Information can be linked in a similar manner to hyperlinks
on a website. Indexes and content pages can be created and you
can even listen to your document – even if it is in a horrible
American accent. Still nothing’s perfect. The search facility
is excellent that will find all instances of a word or phrase
and list them in a results box. Clicking on any of these will
take you directly to its location in the document. This is an
extremely powerful function. The zoom function is something else.
This is also available on the reader and will zoom in by up to
a factor of 6400% without any loss of document quality. Try it
– you will be amazed.
Very often the information created needs to be protected from
outside influences – after all if you have just completed
hours of work on a new company brochure, the last thing you want
is someone to redesign it for you. Here is where the security
options come in. The creator can restrict the opening and editing
of the whole file or only allow designated signatures access to
modify and/or comment on the work.
There are hosts of other tools available which are far to numerous
to mention here but all designed to create the most professional
of documents. In true Adobe style, the options are huge and there
are often many ways to skin a cat. The package comes with a very
comprehensive help file and shortcuts to the most important HOW
TO options.
So
.pdf files seem to be the way the computer industry likes to port
its information. If you have not got yourself a copy of Acrobat
Reader installed, I recommend you do so.
Dave
Robb
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