In yesterday’s blog post (Portable What?), I said I’d share the second primary reason that PDFs are often used instead of plain documents: Creators of the document don’t want you to be able to change it! This is the reason lawyers and manufacturers use PDFs instead of Word or WordPerfect documents. Think about it, would a lawyer send you a final contract if the format allowed you, the reader, to change the wording? Of course, no lawyer worth his or her salt would do that. The same thing applies to manufacturers who supply user and repair manuals online. They need to make sure what appears online is what they actually posted.

Most of us only have PDF readers. We could be using Adobe Acrobat Reader, Foxit Reader, Google Drive or even certain browsers. These and many more pieces of software allow us to read a PDF.

If we want to create our own PDFs, well, that takes more than just a reader. Modern Word versions allow us to save a Word document as a PDF but that layout is limited by Word’s layout. If we really want to create a PDF from scratch, we need a program that is designed to do just that.

Of course, as the original creator of the PDF format, Adobe has Adobe Acrobat. It’s a great program – both Joyce and I have it. But, one drawback might be price. There are other programs available which allow you to create and edit PDFs. One of the best apps is from an affiliate company of ours – Ashampoo. They’ve just come out with a new version and, if you use our link, you can save 57% and purchase the software at a great price. Just click on this picture: