You don’t need expensive software to be able to read files created by expensive software

Most people have read documents and other files on their computer using Adobe’s portable document format, called pdf. Many organisations publish information on the web using pdf format and many of us send and receive emails containing useful information in pdf format. We take it for granted.

‘pdf is simple, cheap, and very environmentally-friendly,’ says Indigo Technologies’ Sean Thomson, who regularly installs pdf creation software for his clients. ‘Pdf is a document format that allows you to view complex documents using a simple viewer. It allows people with basic software on their PC to access the information created in files using more complex formats, like Computer-Aided Design (CAD) packages, spreadsheets, presentation packages like PowerPoint, publishing software like Quark Express and PageMaker.

‘All of these sophisticated formats can be reduced to a simple ‘read-only’ format that is pdf, and it can be read using the ubiquitous Acrobat Reader – a piece of free software. All the formatting, fonts, images, and every other part of the file are saved in the pdf, and you can view them very simply.’

Creating pdfs is also easy – it’s as simple as printing a document, and it is far more efficient in time and computer disk space than scanning pages of documents into large files and storing them. And creation is becoming cheaper all the time, and is now accessible to most organisations.

‘It’s a very good way for business people to send pictures or graphics or materials that need to be viewed and approved or commented upon,’ says Sean Thomson. ‘You can’t review a faxed copy of a coloured graphic because it looks nothing like the original but you can review the pdf version of a graphic, quickly and simply. And because it is ‘read-only’ the file remains intact.’

Marketing materials can be sent to a number of people for checking and comments, advertisements can be proofed and reviewed, telephone lists can be proofread and checked for accuracy, minutes of meetings can be read and distributed fast, graphics can be approved and returned to the printer for publishing – with pdf there is no need for signing off on expensive colour proofs.

‘More and more businesses are equipping their staff with the ability to create pdfs from a variety of file formats,’ says Sean Thomson, ‘so they can do a whole range of things on their intranet, on the web, through emails or CDs, like

• scan paper documents for electronic publishing
• put documents or presentations on the Web with virtually no re-authoring time
• reduce the business’s printing, storage and distribution costs
• let employees, clients, and potential clients view, search, and print documents with no loss of original formatting and feel, regardless of the applications they use
• get fast approvals and reviews of documents and drawings and diagrams by sending pdfs by email
• make employee information like handbooks and directories easily available and easily updated
• send newsletters to customers and employees around the world

pdf creation within an organisation has come right down in price, now that there is more than one route to producing pdfs. You can bring the costs to a few pounds per employee, whereas it used to be about £100 per employee, which might be prohibitive if a business has hundreds of employees that need pdf creation capability.

Aberdeen City Council, for example, has recently equipped hundreds of its employees with the ability to make pdfs, and hundreds of thousands of visitors to the ACC web site are now benefiting – minutes of meetings, planning applications, tenders, and a huge number of other files are uploaded and available for reading on the ACC web site.

And another useful spin-off is storage space - the source material doesn’t have to be kept in hundreds of filing cabinets – it is safe, secure from degradation and takes up very little storage space once it is in pdf format – a very environmentally friendly solution.