Trident University

Module 1 SLP
ITM424: Introduction to Software Use and Tech. Support
Dr. Ying Liu

For this assignment I chose to talk about the Adobe Systems Portable Document Format or PDF, the standard for printable documents on the web. Invented by Adobe Systems the Portable Document Format (PDF) is the standard for capturing and reviewing information from almost any application on any computer system and sharing it with almost anyone, anywhere. First released in 1993 the PDF format was not an immediate success, but Adobe’s decision to distribute the Acrobat Reader software for free, in my opinion, was instrumental in the PDF formats’ success. Motivated by the hope of a paperless office, the PDF format started as a pet project of Adobe founder John Warnock. PDF started as an internal project at Adobe that would allow a file to be shared throughout the company and be used on any operating system. In his paper which led to the development of PDF, John Warnock wrote: ‘Imagine being able to send full text and graphics documents (newspapers, magazine articles, technical manuals etc.) over electronic mail distribution networks. These documents could be viewed on any machine and any selected document could be printed locally. This capability would truly change the way information is managed.’ His vision of an application that would allow a corporation effectively capture documents from any application, and send them electronically anywhere, to view and print these documents on any machines has revolutionized the corporate environment. Acrobat 1.0 featured internal links and bookmarks and fonts could be embedded but provided only limited color support. Acrobat 2 became available in November 1994 supporting plug-ins within the document and the possibility to search PDF files. In November 1996, Adobe launched Acrobat 3.0 and with the inclusion of a plug-in to view PDF files in a browser, adobe increased the popularity of PDF file on the new developing Internet. Adobe also added the possibility to link PDF files to HTML pages and vice versa, it was also integrated into Microsoft office increasing its usability. However the version that established Adobe acrobat and PDFs came with the release of Acrobat 5.0 in 2001. It improved security, including 128-bit encryption and the option of setting the quality of printing the addition of transparency support, which allows an object like text or an image to be seen through. There was improved support for JavaScript, and better integration with databases an option many companies were looking for. The forms-functionality was enhanced a lot. The user interface of Acrobat resembled Microsoft Office applications and the integration of Acrobat within Office was also improved. Thumbnails are created automatically when a PDF file is opened in Acrobat 5, which helps a great deal when you have a thousand pages in a document. The export-filters, including an option to export data from a PDF to the RTF file format. This made it easier to maintain the appearance of files when exporting them to Word.

Imagine the world without PDFs, I know in my line of work life would be difficult since consistently produce visually intensive documents that need to be emailed to people all across the globe on many different systems or burned to CDs. This would be very difficult and resource consuming without the Adobe PDF suite. I use several software applications to prepare these document, Microsoft office suite, open office, analyst notebook, Apple ect…, but using PDF allows me to provide secure collaboration with my team and streamline the document management and processes.