Working with PDF files

(Last updated: 2010-05-26)

1. What is PDF

PDF stands for portable data format. It is a file format created by Adobe and has been widely used for exchanging files.

2. How to display or view a pdf file

In order to display or view a pdf file, you have to have Acrobat Reader installed on your computer.  Acrobat Reader is freeware that can be downloaded from http://www.adobe.com/acrobat. 

3. How to create a pdf file

A pdf file can be created using either the commerical Adobe's Acrobat (NOT Acrobat Reader) or other software applications such as the free PDFCreator (for Windows, http://pdfforge.org/pdfcreator), OpenOffice (for Windows or Mac), and Microsoft Word 2007, etc.

3.1 On Mac

If you are editing your file using Microsoft Word, simply choose the 'Print' function and then select the 'PDF' menu. Follow directions on the screen.

3.2 On PC

If you are using Word 2007 on a PC, simply choose the 'Save as' function and then select 'pdf' as the file format to save your document as a pdf file.

3.3 If you want to use other pdf converters on a PC

The general procedure for creating a pdf file is as follows:

  1. Install a PDF converter (such as Acrobat or PDFCreator);
  2. Create the original document (e.g., using Microsoft Word);
  3. Convert it into PDF format using Adobe Acrobat (http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/) or some other software such as PDFCreator;

To convert a Word document into a pdf file on the Windows platform, for example, you can follow these steps:

  1. Edit your Word document;
  2. From the File menu, choose Print.
  3. Within the Print window, select Adobe PDF (if installed) or PDFCreator (if installed) as the 'printer';
  4. Click OK and follow the instructions on the screen to complete the job.