PDF

Portable Document Format - a file format developed by Adobe Systems. PDF captures formatting information from a variety of desktop publishing applications, making it possible to send formatted documents and have them appear on the recipient's monitor or printer as they were intended. To view a file in PDF format, you need Adobe Acrobat Reader, a free application distributed by Adobe Systems.

Developed by Adobe Systems, Inc., 'PDF' stands for 'portable document format'. PDF is the de facto standard for the exchange of electronic documents. PDF preserves the fonts, images, graphics, and layout of any source document, regardless of how the original document was created. PDF files can be shared, viewed, and printed with Acrobat, a viewer application available free from Adobe Systems. Documents can be converted to PDF using software products created by Adobe and others. Depending on how they are created, PDFs can also be searchable PDF, either by retaining text from the source document or by having a source image file converted by OCR. Depending on capture methodology, PDFs may retain some metadata.

Portable Document Format - a common proprietary document format from Adobe used for documents having mixtures of text and images that preserves the look and feel of a printed page and permits the user to zoom and magnify the pages when viewing; not "archival" because of its proprietary nature.

-- see PDF viewers

Portable Document Format is a universal file format developed by Adobe Systems that allows files to be stored and viewed in the original printer friendly context.

Adobe's Portable Document Format, a file format that renders the page exactly as intended regardless of the computer used. Typically used for creating documents that will be printed. PDF is used instead of HTML when the content creator wants absolute control over the display of the document. In contrast, the display of an HTML document depends on the computer and web browser software used.