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Portable Document Format | Adobe Acrobat

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Everything you need to know about

the PDF.

What does PDF mean?

PDF is an abbreviation that stands for Portable Document Format. It's a versatile file
format created by Adobe that gives people an easy, reliable way to present and
exchange documents - regardless of the software, hardware or operating systems
being used by anyone who views the document.

The PDF format is now an open standard, maintained by the International

Organisation for Standardisation (ISO). PDF docs can contain links and buttons, form
fields, audio, video and business logic. They can be signed electronically and can
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easily be viewed on Windows or MacOS using the free Adobe Acrobat Reader
Adobe Adobe software.

Download free Acrobat Reader

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Adobe created
Adobe the PDF.
Adobe
In 1991, Adobe co-founder Dr John Warnock launched the paper-to-digital revolution
with an idea he called, The Camelot Project. The goal was to enable anyone to
capture documents from any application, send electronic versions of these
documents anywhere and view and print them on any machine. By 1992, Camelot
had developed into PDF. Today, it is the file format trusted by businesses around the
world.
Adobe created the PDF.
In 1991, Adobe co-founder Dr John Warnock launched the paper-to-digital revolution
with an idea he called, The Camelot Project. The goal was to enable anyone to
capture documents from any application, send electronic versions of these
documents anywhere and view and print them on any machine. By 1992, Camelot
had developed into PDF. Today, it is the file format trusted by businesses around the
world.

PDF document conversion made easy.

Warnock’s vision continues to shape the way we work. When you create an Adobe
PDF from documents or images, it looks just the way you intended it to. While many
PDFs are simply pictures of pages, Adobe PDFs preserve all the data in the original
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file format—even when text, graphics, spreadsheets and more are combined in a
Adobe
single file. Adobe
PDF document conversion made easy.
Warnock’s vision continues to shape the way we work. When you create an Adobe
PDF from documents or images, it looks just the way you intended it to. While many
PDFs are simply pictures of pages, Adobe PDFs preserve all the data in the original
file format—even when text, graphics, spreadsheets and more are combined in a
single file.

PDFs have standards.

You can be confident your PDF file meets ISO 32000 standards for electronic
document exchange, including special-purpose standards such as PDF/A for
archiving, PDF/E for engineering and PDF/X for printing. You can also create PDFs to
meet a range of accessibility standards that make content more usable by people
with disabilities.

No paper printouts needed. Ever.

When you need to electronically sign a PDF, it’s easy using the Adobe Acrobat Reader
mobile app or the Acrobat Sign mobile app. Access your PDFs from any web browser
or operating system. For managing legally-binding electronic or digital signature
processes, try Adobe Acrobat or Acrobat Sign.

Adobe PDFs are secure.

When you work with electronic documents, it’s important to make
protection a part of your routine. You can password-protect your
PDF files to prevent others from copying and editing. Redact them

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to permanently delete sensitive information. And even find and

Adobe Adoberemove hidden data.

Learn more about security

Integrate PDFs with other apps.

We partner with leading companies so you can add Adobe Document Cloud’s PDF
tools to the applications your teams already use. With PDF tools embedded in
Microsoft 365, you can instantly convert Microsoft Word documents, Excel files or
Powerpoint presentations to PDF format to simplify and streamline your workflows.

Learn more about integrations

Integrate PDFs with other apps.

We partner with leading companies so you can add Adobe Document Cloud’s PDF tools to the
applications your teams already use. With PDF tools embedded in Microsoft 365, you can
instantly convert Microsoft Word documents, Excel files or Powerpoint presentations to PDF
format to simplify and streamline your workflows.

Learn more about integrations

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Adobe Adobe

Scan documents to simplify your work.

You can scan paper documents and forms to save as Adobe PDF and get
smart files that are easy to search, share and store. Adobe PDFs use optical
character recognition (OCR) technology, so you can edit and comment on
the documents you’ve scanned. More than a PDF viewer, Adobe Acrobat Pro
is a complete PDF solution that lets you create, edit and convert PDF files to
other formats.

Explore Adobe Acrobat's PDF editing and

converter tools.
Convert to PDFs ›

Edit PDFs ›

Export PDFs ›

Create forms ›

Protect PDFs ›

Collect signatures ›

See all Acrobat features

More convenience with PDF mobile apps.

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