Sharing Documents in PDF Format

I always encourage users to be conscientious when sending documents via email. There are many reasons why sending a Word or WordPerfect document as an email attachment isn’t always a good idea: the files tend to be large and can take a long time to download, you can’t be certain that the recipient will be able to open the file, and there is always the possibility of transferring a macro virus with the file. Because of these drawbacks, the pdf format (Portable Document Format) is becoming an increasingly popular way to share documents, as the pdf format can be read on virtually any computer with a pdf reader -- without the threat of macro viruses and the lengthy download times.

New computers all come with the most current version of Adobe’s Acrobat Reader installed. Users who don’t have Acrobat Reader installed can download it from Adobe. This free program will enable you to read any document saved in pdf format. Further, versions are also available for handhelds, which means you can take your documents in pdf format with you to read on the go.

Unfortunately, while the ability to read pdf files is available to anyone at no cost, the ability to create and edit files in pdf format requires the purchase of special software. Adobe Acrobat (not to be confused with the basic Reader) is by far the most popular pdf format creation software. As you can imagine, it carries a price tag that will make most users balk – about US$280.

For users who simply want to share documents on a read-only basis, there are a few other options. Recent versions of WordPerfect feature the ability to save documents in pdf format, as does OpenOffice Writer (free download site: openoffice.org). To date, Microsoft has not offered the ability to save Word files in pdf format, but don’t despair, Word users -- there are add-ins available that will allow you to save files in pdf. Most will cost you around US$40, but Primopdf offers a free conversion tool for Word that is easy to use.