PDF - why and what?

These days most of the computer literate people must be working with PDF files on a daily basis. Sometimes they may be working with a PDF file without knowing it's a PDF. PDF is the abbreviation for Portable Document Format. Introduced by the leading graphic arts software company Adobe Inc., USA, PDF came in our way to help us with many unresolved issues in the graphical arts industry. The popularity of Internet and e-mail increased the scope of PDF to a greater length.

Let us see why we need PDF. As you know we do designing in many softwares, like Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Page Maker, Adobe InDesign, QuarkXpress, Corel Draw etc. There are a multitude of designing softwares. The choice of most of these softwares are more a personal preference. Supposing we are doing a job in QuarkXpress, and we are e-mailing the file to our client for approval, he can't open the file as he doesn't have QuarkXpress. The file needs the same software, same or advanced version, supporting fonts, supporting images, color profile and many other supporting features to show correctly. This is virtually not practical as to view a proof, the client has to buy designing softwares, which costs a few thousands of Dirhams and moreover which is not of use to him other than just seeing the proof. And if the designer next time decides to work in Illustrator, the client has to run to buy Illustrator. One option to avoid this scenario is to send a image file of the proof in jpg or tiff or bmp formats, which almost all PCs are capable to open. But the problem with these files are these will not be so sharp as an original printout. If it has to be really sharp, the file size is going to increase and it becomes difficult to transfer the file over internet. These files when printed on a desktop printer gives undesired results. Its better on screen than on print. These issues makes the client confused and difficult to check the document properly.

Here is where PDF can help. PDF is a self contained file. It contains fonts, images, color profiles and all the other necessary information needed to view and print the document. Almost all of the popular designing / typesetting softwares are capable of producing PDF files. If not, we can create a 'post script' file (see box article) out of which we can create a PDF. To view a PDF file we need a software called Acrobat Reader, a PDF reading software by Adobe. Acrobat Reader is provided free by Adobe and it can be either downloaded from their site www.adobe.com or can be installed from any of the software or hardware driver CDs as most of them supply this to read their installation or help notes.

The file size of an PDF file will be much lesser than the original (source) file size. Based on the settings it can even be lower than an jpg file of low resolution. The quality of text when displayed or printed will not affect while the file size becoming lower. The quality of images could be lowered, but still printing better than an image file. PDF can be produced in different settings which is suitable for transferring over internet, or for printing.
These days most of the computer literate people must be working with PDF files on a daily basis. Sometimes they may be working with a PDF file without knowing it's a PDF. PDF is the abbreviation for Portable Document Format. Introduced by the leading graphic arts software company Adobe Inc., USA, PDF came in our way to help us with many unresolved issues in the graphical arts industry. The popularity of Internet and e-mail increased the scope of PDF to a greater length.

Let us see why we need PDF. As you know we do designing in many softwares, like Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Page Maker, Adobe InDesign, QuarkXpress, Corel Draw etc. There are a multitude of designing softwares. The choice of most of these softwares are more a personal preference. Supposing we are doing a job in QuarkXpress, and we are e-mailing the file to our client for approval, he can't open the file as he doesn't have QuarkXpress. The file needs the same software, same or advanced version, supporting fonts, supporting images, color profile and many other supporting features to show correctly. This is virtually not practical as to view a proof, the client has to buy designing softwares, which costs a few thousands of Dirhams and moreover which is not of use to him other than just seeing the proof. And if the designer next time decides to work in Illustrator, the client has to run to buy Illustrator. One option to avoid this scenario is to send a image file of the proof in jpg or tiff or bmp formats, which almost all PCs are capable to open. But the problem with these files are these will not be so sharp as an original printout. If it has to be really sharp, the file size is going to increase and it becomes difficult to transfer the file over internet. These files when printed on a desktop printer gives undesired results. Its better on screen than on print. These issues makes the client confused and difficult to check the document properly.

Here is where PDF can help. PDF is a self contained file. It contains fonts, images, color profiles and all the other necessary information needed to view and print the document. Almost all of the popular designing / typesetting softwares are capable of producing PDF files. If not, we can create a 'post script' file (see box article) out of which we can create a PDF. To view a PDF file we need a software called Acrobat Reader, a PDF reading software by Adobe. Acrobat Reader is provided free by Adobe and it can be either downloaded from their site www.adobe.com or can be installed from any of the software or hardware driver CDs as most of them supply this to read their installation or help notes.

The file size of an PDF file will be much lesser than the original (source) file size. Based on the settings it can even be lower than an jpg file of low resolution. The quality of text when displayed or printed will not affect while the file size becoming lower. The quality of images could be lowered, but still printing better than an image file. PDF can be produced in different settings which is suitable for transferring over internet, or for printing.