You might know how burdensome is to send files to clients, partners, suppliers, solicitors and consultants just to find out that the look and feel of your document has changed or worse still, the document could not even be read at all?



You might as well have similar problems when files are sent to you. Could the effectiveness and efficiency of your team be improved by knowing that every time you send or receive a document, it can always be viewed exactly as it was created? Do you have hundreds or maybe thousands of newsletters, manuals, technical papers and product specifications that you need published on the internet, intranets or on CD?

These common problems are why many companies have already defined PDF (Portable Document Format) as their company-wide publishing standard. Over 200 million users worldwide can now read PDF format documents.

The PDF document format provides the following business benefits:

Documents always look exactly the same, for all senders and receivers of a document, regardless of the hardware or software used.The documents act as colour, electronic fax machines but with much higher quality and speed. Documents can be distributed worldwide for almost zero cost and then be digitally printed in small or large volumes, at any location. The documents can be magnified by up to 1600%, with no diminishing of quality. The documents can be navigated by keyword search, table of contents or hyperlinks. This greatly increases their usability.The format is ideal for presentations, since PDF documents always look exactly the same on all platforms. The file format is very compact, so files can be sent quickly to recipients. The file format is ideal for archiving, since the look and feel of documents is retained and the document size is compact The file format is essential for business documents like agreements and forms that must retain their exact appearance for legal reasons. For example, this may apply to application forms, tax returns, licence agreements, tender documents, quotations and logos. FASTER, BETTER, CHEAPER All these advantages translate into faster, cheaper and less complex viewing, navigating, storing and printing, for business documents. So digital, document workflow throughout the company can become more reliable, with richly formatted PDF documents maintaining their very high quality, regardless of where they are sent or who views the documents. PDF is truly a global, document exchange format.

By using PDF documents within your own company and encouraging and/or subsidising the cost of purchase of PDF software, with your partners, suppliers, legal firms, accountants and various outside consultancies, then more and more of your business documents can be exchanged digitally. The benefits to the business are faster delivery, better customer service and lower costs.

There are some great tools on the Internet that can create PDF files from any application, as easy as printing the document to a Virtual Printer driver. For example: PDF Writer Pro: http://www.amicutilities.com/pdf-writer/, or you cangoogle for more.

Alexandru Marias is an IT student, maintaining softwaresites such as and