A dummy's guide to PDF

What is all this PDF and Acrobat stuff?

PDF (Portable Document Format) is a way to representing documents which retain the exact look of the page (fonts, margins, etc.).  Making a document available on the Web in PDF format assures that the viewer will see the page exactly like the author intended regardless of browser or operating system being used. For this to work, the browser must have the software to display a PDF file. This software is called the Acrobat Reader and is freely available from Adobe Systems, the inventor of PDF. So, before you can view a PDF file, you must download and install the Acrobat software.

To download the software,

1. Visit the Adobe web site and follow the instructions to download the file.
2. Choose the option to save the file to disk. Select a directory on your computer (remember what you pick).
3. After the file has completed the download, you will need to run the file (e.g., find it in Windows Explorer and double click it).
4. The installation program will run. Respond to the prompts to install the software. This will set up the Acrobat software to work with your browser so that when you click on a PDF file, the Acrobat software is invoked to display the file.

Tips for using the Acrobat viewer

To scroll  in the document, click and drag the "hand" cursor to "push" the document up and down.

To magnify the document, you can click the the magnifying glass icon on the upper toolbar and then click on the part of the document to magnify. Alternatively, you can change the current magnification ratio by clicking on it on the bottom toolbar and selecting a new ratio.

To move to the next page, click on the forward (right) arrow on the top toolbar. To jump to a specific page, click on the button on the left of the bottom toolbar which shows the current page number, then select the desired page.

When viewing the file using the Acrobat software, printing the file via the File, Print menu will print the file exactly like the original document.

To save a PDF file, hold the Shift key down and click on the link to the PDF file. This will bring up a window asking where to save the file. Select a directory to save the file into.