Adobe's popular PDF file format is often used in genealogy work. Many of the CD-ROM disks reviewed in this newsletter have been published in PDF format, as has some of the information found on genealogy web sites.
The Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) has become the de facto standard for electronic documentation distribution. Once a file is created in PDF format, anyone can read your document across a broad range of hardware and software, and it will look exactly as you intended - with layout, fonts, color, links, and images intact. In short, it will look like a document published with a desktop publishing program. It will look the same on any operating system, including Windows, Macintosh, Linux, UNIX, OS/2, and even handheld computers. Best of all, the required software to view your PDF document is completely free. As a result, everyone can read your document.
PDF files used to be considered to be "secure." That is, nobody could ever take your PDF document, import it into a word processor, and then use your data. However, that has now changed. In fact, this week I used a program that easily converts PDF files to Microsoft Word files. I found it to be extremely easy to use.
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