What Is A PDF - Portable Document Format - Adobe Acrobat

1/26/23, 3:27 PM What is a PDF?
Portable Document Format | Adobe Acrobat
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PDF. Three letters that continue to

change the world.
What is PDF?

PDFs run your world. You know you use PDFs to make your most important work
happen. That's why we invented the Portable Document Format (better known by the
abbreviation PDF), to present and exchange documents reliably — independent of
software, hardware or operating system.
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1/26/23, 3:27 PM What is a PDF? Portable Document Format | Adobe Acrobat

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The PDF is now an open Adobe
standard, maintained by the International Organisation for Sign In
Standardisation (ISO). PDF documents can contain links and buttons, form fields, audio,
video and business logic. They can be signed electronically and you can easily view PDF
files on Windows or Mac OS using the free Acrobat Reader software.

Download free Acrobat Reader
We invented 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.
We invented the PDF.
In 1991, Adobe co-founder Dr John Warnock launched the paper-to-digital revolution

Adobe
with an idea he called, The Adobe
Camelot Project. The goal was to enable anyone to capture Sign In
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.
Because looksAdobe
Adobe really do matter. Sign In
Warnock’s vision is alive, well and evolving. 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.
Because looks really do matter.
Warnock’s vision is alive, well and evolving. 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.

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PDFs are all about security.

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 to
permanently delete sensitive information. And even find and remove
hidden data.

Learn more about security
Integrate with the apps you love.

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
Adobe Integrate with the apps you love.

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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
Get more out of scanned documents.

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.

Make the most of your PDFs with Adobe

Acrobat Pro.
Create PDFs ›
Edit PDFs ›
Export PDFs ›
Create forms ›
Protect PDFs ›
Collect signatures ›
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1/26/23, 3:27 PM What is a PDF?

Portable Document Format | Adobe Acrobat

Adobe ☰ Adobe Sign In

PDF. Three letters that continue to

We invented the PDF.

In 1991, Adobe co-founder Dr John Warnock launched the paper-to-digital revolution

PDFs have standards.

No paper printouts needed. Ever.

Adobe Adobe Sign In

PDFs are all about security.

Integrate with the apps you love.

Adobe Integrate with the apps you love.

Get more out of scanned documents.

Make the most of your PDFs with Adobe

Acrobat Reader mobile app

Acrobat Scan mobile app

Featured products Adobe Acrobat Reader Adobe Express Photoshop Illustrator

Ado Ado Ado Ado

Copyright © 2023 Adobe. All rights reserved. /

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