Every day, we create around 2.5 quintillion bytes of data! We type words into emails and files, sending them off to others without a second thought.
But what if someone needs a different file format? You might already know that pictures come in JPG and PNG forms, but what is a PDF? Can you put pictures in it, or is it just text?
If you’ve always wanted to learn more about this file format, then keep reading. We’ll give you a quick guide to becoming an expert on PDFs!
What Is a PDF?
“PDF” is short for “portable document format”. As the name suggests, it converts a file into a more “portable” form, which means it takes up less space in your device.
The PDF format converts not just text, but also pictures, as well as videos, links, interactive buttons, and anything else that can be in a file.
The beauty of PDFs is it always looks exactly the same, no matter which device you open them on. This is because PDFs aren’t reliant on their creator programs. As you can imagine, this makes it a very handy file format to use if the formatting of your file is important and won’t read right if anything goes wrong.
Who Invented the PDF?
In 1991, Dr. John Warnock (the co-founder of Adobe) wanted to make the paper-to-digital transition easier. He started off with The Camelot Project, which intended to capture documents and convert them into digital versions that could be sent through the internet.
As a result of this project, Dr. Warnock created the PDF file in 1992.
What Can You Use PDFs For?
The world’s your oyster when you use PDF files. No matter which type of file you create, you can first convert it to PDF before sending it out to everyone, just in case they don’t have the program you’re using.
For example, if you’ve typed up a tutorial in Microsoft Word, it might look perfect on your end. But if someone doesn’t have Microsoft Word and they use Google Documents to read that tutorial, it might not look right. However, if you convert to PDF, then they’ll see exactly what you’re seeing!
If you’re a developer, then you can also do a C# export to PDF. This lets you convert HTML to PDF, and you can also edit these PDF documents programmatically.
Impress People With Your PDF Knowledge
Not only do you know the answer to the question, “what is a PDF”, but you also know who invented it and what you can use it for.
Thanks to Adobe’s co-founder, we now have this versatile file format that facilitates the transfer of various data between people all over the world! So make sure you take full advantage of it to become a fully digitalized person.
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