About the PDF File Extension

This article explains the .PDF file extension and its associated PDF document technology.  It briefly describes PDF's background, uses, and associated software.  The pros and cons of using this format are also discussed.

PDF Files

The .PDF file extension represents files using the Portable Document Format created by Adobe Systems.Such "PDF files", as they are known, are used to facilitate easy document exchange in a manner independent of hardware, software applications, and operating systems. File Extensions

PDF File Extension is Non-Proprietary

For years vendors created their own proprietary file formats to arrange data suitable for their individual application's needs. This poses a problem when users want to share their work with other users that do not use the same applications and/or computer systems. The PDF file format was one of the earliest attempts at solving this problem. Formally a proprietary, "de-facto" standard, it became an open ISO standard in 2008.

Most recognized user of the PDF File Format

Adobe Reader is probably the most commonly-used application for viewing PDF files. Most popular applications on all operating systems have methods to "export" their data to PDF format, allowing it to be viewed by anyone with Adobe Reader even if they do not have access to the application that originally created it. Other third-party viewers do exist, however, such as Foxit Reader and PDF-XChange Viewer.

A multitude of virtual printer drivers have even been developed to make PDF document creation truly universal. Even if an application does not natively support exporting to PDF, the application can send the print job to the virtual printer, which will render the printout into a PDF file, thus saving to disk rather than printing to an actual printer.

Although most mainstream applications can create PDF files, the Adobe Acrobat suite was created by Adobe Systems as their own solution to creating, viewing, and managing PDF files. This suite includes many more features than simply exporting data to the PDF format. For example, one can create fill-in-the-blank forms with Acrobat. These forms can be distributed to users, filled in electronically, and printed out without users have to write anything on them manually.

Although the Portable Document Format is fairly mature at this point, there are still some minor security and accessibility issues. However, these issues rarely pose a problem to the typical user printing simple documents or viewing PDFs downloaded from websites.