Document file formats are an essential part of doing business and cybersecurity. One of the most popular formats is PDF, developed in 1993 by Adobe and quickly gained popularity. Today it is the de facto standard format for document management online. You can find reports, forms, instructions for household appliances, and other documents on the network. In this post we’ll consider the main advantages of PDF format for your workflow. And we discuss why you should choose it.
Can Save Formatting
Text formatting is the real pain of many business people, students, and ordinary users. If your document uses a complex formatting structure with headers, footers, paragraphs, and so on, then if you open it in another text editor, this formatting will most likely “float.”
This is because there is no single standard for office editors, and therefore completely different office suites can be used in other companies, such as:
- Microsoft Office;
- Google Workspace;
- Apple iWork;
- LibreOffice.
They are poorly compatible with each other. Therefore, opening a document created in LibreOffice by a program from the Microsoft Office package is always a lottery. Save the file as a PDF to solve this problem. Exporting to a PDF file will preserve all formatting elements in their original form, namely: size, color, fonts, position, padding, and images. To save the document, vector graphics technology is used, which means that your text will retain high quality and readability of the text.
The only downside to this approach is that a PDF is essentially an image file. It cannot be further edited. But this is not a big problem, because with the help of the service you can, for example, merge pdf files online.
If you plan to use some documents for further co-editing, then you should take care of standardizing office suites and using the co-editing function in them.
Cross-platform
Another significant advantage is the cross-platform nature of this format. When transferring files to other devices controlled by an OS different from yours, you may encounter various unpleasant situations. For example, the system does not have the necessary fonts, and unreadable hieroglyphs will open instead of text. This is uncomfortable in business correspondence, which requires periodic instant decisions and various devices.
Exporting to PDF solves this problem. A text document or spreadsheet saved as vector graphics can be easily opened on any device, whether a computer with MacOS, Windows or Linux or a phone and tablet running iOS\iPadOS or Android. On any device or operating system, a PDF document will retain its original formatting, chart graphics, and images.
This feature makes it popular in business correspondence and for publishing various documents in the public domain. This is why most of the instructions for household appliances, report forms, and even government regulations are published in PDF format simply because such a document is guaranteed to open on any device in its intended state.
Safety
The PDF format is also well suited for business correspondence due to its privacy protection technologies. For documents in this format, there are options for encryption and password protection, which provides reliable protection against unauthorized access to your confidential documents.
Encrypted and password-protected documents can be safely stored in the cloud and sent by e-mail or messengers. Thus, the PDF format is perfect for use in a business environment for working with financial statements, legal documents, and other information that should not fall into third parties.
File Size
Documents in PDF format are convenient to send by e-mail or upload to websites due to their small size. Because when exporting to PDF, the data is compressed according to a special algorithm, the file size is significantly reduced. Still, the image quality and text readability are preserved. PDF documents will be sent by mail faster, uploaded to the site or the cloud, and take up much less space on PC hard drives or cloud storage.
Easy Printing
PDF supports various high-quality fonts, and such documents can be scaled, resized, or changed page orientation. This format ensures the accurate transmission of text and images when printed. Moreover, it opens on any device without formatting loss.
PDF documents print perfectly on inkjet and laser printers, transmitting monochrome and color images well. In addition, such images are perfectly printed both on home or office models and in professional printing houses. Therefore, due to its versatility, it is worth giving preference to the PDF format for transferring files for printing.
How to Create a PDF File
Nothing is more accessible than creating a PDF document or converting a plain text file into it. To do this, you can use numerous online services. Just upload your document and download the finished PDF file.
Also, most of the office suites support working with PDF. To save your document in this format:
- go to the print menu;
- select “Export to PDF” or “Save to PDF” in the list of printers;
- choose a path to save the file.
After that, your file is quickly converted to PDF. You can print, upload to the site or send by e-mail or messenger. If necessary, open the document and add a password and encryption protection.
