Notes on Usage of Adobe Portable Document Format

Portable Document Format (PDF) is a format designed by Adobe, and is used to represent a document in a manner independent of the application software, hardware, and operating system used to create it. It is a well documented and established standard, and is a popular and widely used format for document distribution. It is common to find web pages offer the same document in both formats, HTML for immediate display, and PDF format for downloading (to print).

This document attempts to give a brief description on the PDF, tools and tips for creating document in PDF.

Overview
Tools for Generating/Working on PDF
Tips for Using Adobe Acrobat

Overview

A properly generated PDF document is platform independent, it can be viewed on any computer platform and prints on most printers -- regardless of the computer, operating system, fonts or application used to create the original file.
PDF files retain all the formatting, fonts and graphics of the original document, making it a good candidate for distributing document for printing. An HTML document bears no relationship to a printed page, there is no control for page-break and sections, and the intended layout of the original document is often lost in the hard copy.
Compression is applied to PDF files by default when they are produced. PDF is compact and can be pulled across LAN/the Internet efficiently. Actually PDF format is designed for distribution over the network and can be optimized for incremental downloading. Usually PDF is smaller than the same document in Postscript format.
No platform dependent information is included in the PDF files. Platform specific parameters, like paper size, are configured by document recipient when PDF files are viewed or printed. Printing a Postscript file produced for Letter size paper on A4 sheets (also the other way round) is a nuisance. The margins of the output got shifted. Even worse, on some fuzzy laser printers, they insist the user to confirm the overriding of paper size by pressing a button on the printer for every page to be printed! PDF is a better alternative.

Tools for Generating/Working on PDF

Adobe Acrobat

PDF Writer - PDF Writer acts as a MS Windows/Mac printer driver, applications can print to the "PDF Writer" printer to give PDF files as if printing to a standard laser printer. PDF Writer is not the best tool to use, see below.
Acrobat Distiller - Acrobat Distiller converts document in Postscript format to PDF. Most application offers some ways to "print" to Postscript file, which can then be fed to Acrobat Distiller to generate PDF.
Acrobat - Acrobat lets you modify PDF documents, adding in features such as password protection, annotations, hypertext link, thumbnail and bookmarks. It also supports inserting, deleting, copying and moving individual or multiple pages within PDF files.

As recommended by Adobe Acrobat on-line documentation, PDF Writer is for quick conversion of simple business documents to PDF. If you do not receive satisfactory result with PDF Writer, convert the document to PDF with Distiller.

Also some older applications which do not access Windows printer in a proper manner were unable to print to PDF Writer or crashed with GPF on Windows 3.1. Some True Type fonts were found choking the PDF Writer.

PDF Writer cannot handle documents with EPS graphics, Acrobat Distiller must be used for such documents.

In brief, PDF Writer is not recommended, use Acrobat Distiller instead.

GhostScript/GhostView

Adobe Acrobat Capture

http://www.adobe.com/newsfeatures/capture/convert.html

http://www.adobe.com/newsfeatures/capture/main.html

Tips for Using Adobe Acrobat

Although PDF offers so many nice features, some key points in PDF generation must be observed before it keeps its promise.

The first step to prepare a PDF document is to produce the document to Postscript format. Most Windows application can print via Postscript printer driver to file.

This printer driver is the most basic Postscript printer model, so common Postscript printers would be able to provide all the features/capabilities required by these printer driver.

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About using fonts.

Other Type I fonts are also supported. If some special fonts are needed Type I fonts pack can be purchased from Adobe.

If TrueType fonts are used, the Postscript printer must be configured to "create Type 3 bitmap fonts for TrueType fonts". The default setting of "convert TrueType fonts to Type 1 fonts" is not suitable for creating Postscript files for Distiller, characters can be lost in the resulting PDF files.

To set up the Postscript printer driver to create Type 3 bitmap fonts for TrueType fonts:

On Windows 9x, go to Start -> Settings -> Printers, and double click on the "Apple LaserWriter NTX V51.8" printer icon. Select "Properties" under the "Printers" menu. Select "Fonts" tab on the printer properties dialog box. Then press the "Send fonts as" button on the lower left, then set the field "Send True Type fonts as" to "Bitmaps".
Click here for screen snapshot.
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Check if the Postscript file print correctly to a Postscript printer before feeding it to the Distiller. Invalid Postscript files do not distill correctly.

Acrobat Distiller offers you choices for compatibility. PDF files cannot be opened in earlier viewers if those files were created with latest compatibility. Choosing latest compatibility takes advantage of a number of new improvement. However, unless you know that all the recipients of your PDF documents have the same version viewers, Old version compatibility should be used.
In Acrobat, you can use the "save" command or the "save as" command to preserve changes made to a document. The save command is faster, while the save as command produces more compact files. Perform a "save as" periodically to reduce the size of the file and remember to use "save as" to produce your final copy for distribution.