The Motive Web Design Glossary
portable document format (PDF)
Portable Document Format is a file standard developed by Adobe to allow documents to be distributed electronically while maintaining layout integrity.
PDFs are useful where a large amount of information is to be provided and where reading such material onscreen in unfeasible or inappropriate.
Viewing PDF files
To view PDF files you will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader. This is available as either a stand alone application or as a web browser plug-in from the Adobe website.
Creating PDF doucments
To create PDF documents you will need to purchase the Adobe Acrobat software.
Adobe also provides a web-based version of the software. This allows you to create 3 PDF documents for free. If you live in the U.S. or Canada you can also pay a monthly subscription fee to create all your PDFs online.
References and further reading
- Creating accessible PDFs from Word 2007 (AbilityNet)
How you can use the ‘Save as PDF’ plugin for Microsoft Office 2007 to create accessible PDFs. - Convert scans to searchable PDFs in Acrobat (Creative Techs)
- Give visitors the choice to open or save a PDF using
.htaccess(askApache)
A method for forcing a dialogue to save/download a PDF rather than opening it inside the web browser. - Guide to PDF Documents
and the web (SearchTools.com)
Directory of conversion tools, web searches and PDF-compatible search engines. - A guide to PDF accessibility (WebAim)
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