Many programs seem to support Adobes Portable Document Format (PDF). Why would I want to use it?
If you save a file in a program’s native file format, such as .doc for Microsoft Word, other people can view that file only if they have the same version of that application. Even then, there’s no guarantee they’ll see exactly the same layout you saw. What’s more, an application that’s available for the PC may not be available for the Mac, so you can’t share the files with Mac users. To view a PDF you need a copy of Adobe’s Reader, which is available for all major operating systems. A PDF file contains all the formatting and layout information, pictures and fonts needed to recreate the file, which means it looks exactly as the creator intended on any computer. This makes it easy to transfer files between different computers. Having native PDF support in an application is very useful, as it means you can save documents in this format without having to buy a third-party conversion tool.
