Adobe® Acrobat® 9 PDF Bible

Chapter 1. Getting to Know Adobe Acrobat

To start off this large book on Adobe Acrobat, let's first take a look at what Acrobat is and what PDF is, and let's try to get a grasp on some of the many options you have for working with PDF files in Acrobat.

What Is Adobe Acrobat?

Assuming you know little about Adobe Acrobat, I start with a brief description of what Acrobat is and what it is not. As I explain to people who ask about the product, I usually define it as the most misunderstood application available today. Most of us are familiar with the Adobe Reader software, which is a product from Adobe Systems Incorporated that you can download free from the Adobe Web site (www.adobe.com/acrobat/readermain.html). You can also acquire the Adobe Reader from all the installation CD-ROMs for other Adobe software. You can even acquire Adobe Reader from other sources, as long as the Adobe licensing requirements are distributed with the installer program. The Adobe Reader, however, is not Adobe Acrobat. Adobe Reader is a component of a much larger product family that has evolved through several iterations over more than a decade.

You're probably a little more sophisticated and realize there is a major difference between these applications, and you may wonder why I even spend any time discussing the difference between Acrobat and Adobe Reader. Unfortunately, many people still believe that Adobe Acrobat is the free Adobe Reader program.

To add a little more confusion, Adobe continues to market several ...