So when use PDF document format and when not to use it? If you what to protect your document against changes, if you wan your document to be easy readable at almost any computer then use ... html web-page file format! Well, it's not a joke, as html format is used much for wider than PDF format. For instance, if you have saw any computer without web-browser installed? And can you guaranty that all computers will have an Acrobat Reader? I'm not sure about it.
It seems that the answer for must-use document format is "html", but actually it is not so, because html file is not supported to represent complicated documents structure, and also there is no guaranty that it will looks the same on different computers. Also, html format keeps just data, and if you will need to use some graphics then you will need to distribute graphics files as a single stand-alone files. Not very convenient.
So PDF file format is "must-have" if you need to distribute complicated documents. Today the PDF format is becoming even more popular and companies start using it in everyday job to share information between employees. Here they could face some problems, because PDF format is not editable as it. So there are two ways to sole the problem of fixed file content. The first, is to purchase an expensive software which will allow to edit PDF files, for instance, Adobe Acrobat. When Acrobat Reader is distributed for free, you will need to pay few hundred dollars for Adobe Acrobat.
Another way to have an editable PDF file is using a various converters. For instance, it's possible to convert PDF files into the text or in Word file or in something else. Here you will face some shortening. These who design programs like catchy names and use them for their software products, so expect that converts that converts pdf into text will be named something like "PDF2TXT", where "2" is coming for "to". The same idea about converter that converts PDF to Word, is may be named like "PDF2Word".
The question is: do you need converted that will convert to plain text or to Word? I'd prefer converter that do its job and represent result as a plain text. Why? Because, it's hard to keep the formatting of PDF document, so conversion to Word will be useless. If I will need to convert to Word, I will convert to text and then copy and paste into the Word.
The good question is: if it will work for all PDF files I have? Sure, it depends on converter that you are using. In most cases it will probably do its job good, but there still might be some problems with PDF. Much depends on the PDF authoring tool that was used to created PDF, not all PDF files can be converted correctly. Also, if PDF file is a filled version of paper document, scanned and represented as PDF, then you will not be able to convert it. In this case some OCR software will be needed.
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