Adobe Acrobat

FTL-4

Why do
I want to learn about Adobe Acrobat?

Lets
look at the ETSU home page (www.etsu.edu)

In
the search window put *.pdf (search for files
ending in .pdf)

How
many hits did you find?

Scan
the list and see the types of files an institution such as ETSU publishes
in PDF format

What
is a PDF file? – Portable Document Format

Essentially,
PDF files represent a standard document formatting that does not change
regardless of the computer platform, operating system, or software the
user is using

Created
about 10 years ago to streamline the publishing business

PDF
is “electronic paper” (Duff Johnson, editor Planet PDF @ www.planetpdf.com)

How do
I make a PDF file?

File
conversion occurs using the Adobe Acrobat software (expensive)

Also
there are third party conversion software (www.pdfstore.com) available

I
downloaded a trial version of DocuCom PDF Driver (http://www.pdfstore.com/details.asp?ProdID=389)

It
creates a button in MS Word, PowerPoint, and Excel that allows you to
create a PDF file (cost only $49.95!!!) and it works!!

What
applications can I do with a PDF file?

Share
documents with complex formatting electronically without loosing the
formatting

Share
forms and applications with lots of lines and boxes (these types of
formats do not do well in HTML)

Good
way to share PowerPoint presentations with students

What
are other reasons to use PDF files?

PDF
documents can not carry viruses

Reduced
file size

Bookmarking

Active
hyperlinks in document

Where
can I get additional help and information?

I
found a good site called Planet PDF (www.planetpdf.com)

Within
this site is a set of “Best Practices” articles (http://www.planetpdf.com/mainpage.asp?webpageid=1569)

Another
resource is PDF zone (http://www.pdfzone.com/)

A
site where you can convert documents to PDF for free (http://www.k2pdf.com/convert.html)