Everything you need to know about the PDF.
Learn how the PDF was created — and how its invention has made converting, editing, signing, and sharing documents easier than ever.
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 them.
The PDF format is now an open standard, maintained by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). PDF docs can contain links and buttons, form fields, audio, video, and business logic. They can be signed electronically and can easily be viewed on Windows or macOS using Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Adobe Acrobat
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Adobe Acrobat Reader
The free global standard to reliably view, print, and share PDFs.
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Acrobat online tools
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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, The Camelot Project had developed into PDF. Today, the PDF is a file format used and 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. 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.
PDF features that help you work smarter.
PDF files meet high 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 for all people.
Sign faster with Acrobat e-signatures.
It's easy to electronically sign a PDF using the Adobe Acrobat Reader mobile app or the Acrobat Sign mobile app. Access your PDFs from any web browser or operating system. To manage 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 to permanently delete sensitive information. You can even find and remove hidden data.
Scan documents to simplify your work.
You can scan paper documents and forms to save as Adobe PDFs that are easy to search, share, and store. With optical character recognition (OCR) technology, you can edit text and make comments in the documents you've scanned. More than a PDF viewer, Adobe Acrobat Pro is the advanced PDF solution that lets you create, edit, and convert PDF files to other formats.
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 for simpler, more streamlined workflows.
