About the Adobe PDF Document Format
Portable Document Format (or PDF) was developed by Adobe Systems for creation and distribution of electronic documents that can be viewed on any platform independently on hardware, software, or operating system.
The PDF format is based on PostScript, a page description language, which means that a PDF file contains instructions that can be interpreted by Adobe Reader or another PDF viewer program to render text elements, images, hyperlinks, and the entire document in the result.
Portability of a PDF Document
This approach in combination with font embedding and replacement features supported with the PDF format makes it possible for a PDF document to be presented and viewed by a user from screen or printed on any platform including Windows, Mac OS, Android, iOS, and other operating systems.
PDF Viewers
To open a PDF document, a user needs a viewer application like Adobe Reader which is freely available for download on the official website. In addition, a PDF file can be opened by most modern browser programs like Google Chrome, Firefox, or Internet Explorer; however, technically browsers use an official or third-party extension for opening a PDF file.
Viewing and Creating PDF Documents
Since the PDF format is based on PostScript language which is interpreted by a viewer application, a PDF file can be considered as read-only document, so it can be opened and printed, but cannot be modified by the user. To create a PDF document, you can use an editor or PDF printer listed in this section, or a documentation tool allowing you to create PDFs as demonstrated in our instructions.
Encryption and Password Protection
Additionally, the PDF format includes powerful encryption capabilities allowing the original author who has created a PDF document to protect the content and restrict user rights related to viewing, copying and printing the file.
Use of PDF Documents
As a document format standardized by ISO, PDF is widely used in many areas for creating and distributing different kinds of documents including official business documents, technical documentation, financial documents, white papers, etc.
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