PDF 101: Using PDF Files in Windows

Quick Take

The PDF format is widely recognized by a number of users and online businesses, providing documents in an easy-to-use and accessible format. Should you have difficulty in creating, printing, saving or converting PDF’s, read Bright Hub’s guide on all things related to the format.

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Choosing Your PDF Application

PDF, which stands for Portable Document Format, first emerged in the early 90s as an open standard for exchanging documents. This means that the file format allows the document owner the ability to share documents across platforms/OS while allowing for both uniformity in layout and reliability independent of software.

Many users prefer PDFs because they offer a clean and clear layout, or because they are easy to share. Businesses also make ample use of PDFs, such as music transcription services, E-books publishers, sheet music sites or other forms of digital literature distribution.

Below are articles on the best PDF applications and creation software, and a beginner’s guide on how to make full use of this file format specifically tailored to documents.

Creating a PDF Document

Printing to PDF is an option usually embedded in any application used for writing or data processing, and it is usually simple to do. In addition, some applications allow you to save directly to PDF format. The articles included below detail how to create a PDF by using free software, as well as which free creators and editors to avoid.

Included is a helpful piece on how to make the most of PDF’s, a general outline that includes printing, editing and inserting your document into your web page.

Converting to and From PDF

A number of file formats can be converted to PDF, including the standard “.doc” file format, files used in Power Point, HTML and many others. Alternatively, you can convert PDF files to Word documents and other formats as well. Conversion is usually straightforward, requiring nothing more than a few simple steps.

There are a number of articles on conversion below, including three separate reviews of the popular PDF Converter Pro application.

PDF Converter Professional 4

Saving and Printing

Similar to the section above, here are articles on how to convert a file to PDF format using a free application. However, this section expands upon the previous one, as we include information on how to save to PDF in specific applications such as Microsoft Publisher and Microsoft Office 2010.

In addition, there is a troubleshooting section detailing printing problems for solving your PDF conversion woes.

PDF Security, Internet and Web Development

In this section, we provide articles explaining the encryption feature of PDF documents and how to set a password to protect your files. In addition, there are articles on how to avoid viruses in documents and what tools work the best for encrypting your PDFs.

The last three articles are exclusively aimed at web developers, outlining the basic steps to include PDF documents in a web page, how to link documents to web buttons and how to insert PDFs using Joomla.

Miscellaneous and Troubleshooting

Kobo eReader Touch Edition

The following are general articles on working with the format, including inserting a PDF document into Microsoft Word and Microsoft Publisher. For those who have a Kobo e-reader, you can learn how to download and import PDF files for later reading.

Should you have problems with missing fonts, there is an article that will provide plenty of information on how to deal with that by reinstalling what is needed. In conclusion to our guide on using PDF files in Windows, we include a general article on how to work with PDF’s in Windows 7.

References

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