MIT PDF--Conversion Galore

PDF, the portable document format

• Everything you ever wanted to know about PDF.
  • created to get away from all the dependencies of different operating systems and word processing applications.
    • Takeaway: There are many versions of the PDF format; not all PDF documents will behave the same.

PDF Trivia

• Created by Adobe Systems in 1993
• Submitted to ISO as a standard in 2008 --ISO 32000-1

PDF, the software world

• List of PDF Software

PDF, the basics

Viewing

Desktop Applications

• View in a browser {Chrome, Firefox}, have native ability to read PDF, the simplest, but not the most reliable, nor the fastest.
• Adobe Acrobat Reader now deceased? Now it's Adobe Acrobat DC
• For Windows, SumatraPDF is the best <-- That's a matter of quantitative fact
• For Macintosh, I have no idea
• For GNU/Linux, Evince

Mobile Applications

• Android: Document Viewer, on F-Droid Repo, on Google Play
• Android: Google PDF viewer <-- whatever! Document Viewer rules because it uses document rendering engine from GNU/Linux = super fast
• Android: Adobe Acrobat Reader on Google Play
• IOS: ?

Export as

Most applications have an ability to export as a PDF document:

• MS Excel
• MS Word
• MS PowerPoint
• Libre Office Writer
• Libre Office Calc
• Libre Office Presentation
• Google Sheets
• Google Doc
• Google Slides