What is a PDF?

There are two big advantages to using PDFs (portable document format).  First, PDFs preserve the original look of the document almost exactly: fonts, glasses and layout all appear as they do in the original.  Second, PDFs are device-independent. This means that anyone with the right software can view and print a PDF document.  Fortunately, the PDF reader software is free.  Acrobat Reader is available for many platforms and the full documentation is available at the Adobe Web site.

Acrobat Reader displays any PDF document, not just those served up by a Web browser. Once the program is installed, it works seamlessly with your browser--in other words, there's no jumping back and forth between programs.  However, since it takes a lot of computer memory to run Acrobat Reader at the same time as a Web browser, you may want to download the PDF file and view it offline. This is the best approach if you use a computer that's short of memory.

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