Adobe Acrobat

If you've spent any time at all on the internet, you are certainly familar with PDF documents. PDF means "Portable Document Format" and it was created by a company called Adobe to make up for the lack of document formatting in HTML and other web standards. Since PDF files are so incredibly powerful, the format quickly became the dominant standard for this on the web.

The Acrobat product allows you to create PDF documents. Perhaps the most useful feature is simply the ability to convert any document into PDF format. That's what I typically have used this product for. This is incredibly simple. You just open the document in whatever program: for example, Microsoft Word. You then print it to the Adobe Acrobat printer. Acrobat converts it to PDF format at this time. That is all there is to it.

If all you want to do is convert documents to PDF, do not bother to purchase Acrobat. Instead, purchase EasyPDF (left). This product is an inexpensive way to convert documents into PDF.

Acrobat, however, has many, many other functions. The product has a powerful built-in editor which gives you the capability to edit PDF documents directly. This gives you complete control over the document format. You can annotate (add comments), allow others to edit with a history of those edits, password protect and perform countless other actions.

One of my favorite features is the ability to grab any web page (or even a whole web site) and download it to a PDF file. This is perfect for creating an exact copy of what's seen on the web for later reference.

Need to learn how to use Acrobat? The book to the left, Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Standard classroom in a Book, is an excellent way to begin. The product can be complicated, and this book takes it apart step-by-step in easy to understand lessons. By the time you finish, you will understand how to use Acrobat.