THE PDF FORMAT, ADOBE ACROBAT AND GENERICS

 

The PDF format is an invention of Adobe Acrobat and has been found to be the most effective format for sending a prepared document as an attachment by e-mail or via the Internet. There is only one problem:

 

A “Reader” program is needed.

 

The latest "Adobe Acrobat Reader" program is a monster file to download. This has scared off those of us with computers that are 10 years old or still older. We only use our computers for personal communication, sending letters to our children or grandchildren in far away places. No disrespect to Adobe is intended, it's a great program and an essential tool if you are in the publishing business, but for us mere mortals just a bit daunting.

 

But there is an alternative! After doing some work on the question of PDF files I can report as follows;

 

The official Adobe Acrobat download is

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

 

This links to a page where you can download older (and smaller) versions of Acrobat.

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2_allversions.html

 

The size of the downloaded program is between 9 and 20.8 MB, (depending on the sophistication of the hardware being used) and following the prompts will take a considerable amount of time.

 

The alternative is to download a generic free PDF Reader that is small and fast. (0.6MB vs Acrobat 9MB to 20,8MB). Just click on the following and within a couple of minutes you'll be reading PDF files with ease.

http://www.pdf2exe.com/CoolPDFReaderInstall.exe

 

 

With the above program loaded you’ll be browsing the Internet and opening doors to exciting information, not to mention your club’s newsletter.

 

The Webmaster.