Sony PRS950BC Creating PDFs User Guide - Page 3

I. Introduction PDF (Portable Document Format) PDF (Portable Document Format) is a cross-platform, device-independent page description language and file format developed by Adobe Systems. Its primary use is to render, store, and transmit formatted pages, capturing the entire page structure of a document just as it would have been rendered by a Postscript printer. Most common file formats can be converted to PDF using Adobe® Acrobat® Standard or Professional or other PDF rendering applications, some of which are available at no cost. Many professional book, magazine, and other printers prefer to be supplied with PDFs for printing because it is a standardized format and because unless a PDF is deliberately edited, its contents can be considered safe from unintended alteration. Properly generated and handled, PDFs can basically be thought of as a faithful electronic representation of the print version of any document. One of the key differences between a PDF and an image file format (like jpeg, gif, etc.) is that PDF preserves formatting elements such as fonts and graphics by embedding them into the file in a manner that can be managed via various settings. PDF is an excellent means of displaying content from a variety of common consumer applications, including the Microsoft® Office suite of applications and their OpenOffice.org open source counterparts, on the Sony® Reader. The key to generating PDFs that will display clearly on the Reader is to size the PDF properly when you create it, and to set margins, font sizes, etc. within a range that is suited to the Reader's screen size and resolution. This instructional document is intended to provide all the information necessary to create PDFs that are ready to be viewed in the Sony Reader from a variety of common applications. PDF Creation Software On a computer running the Microsoft Windows® operating system, you will need to have PDF creation software installed in order to generate PDFs from within the common desktop applications covered in this instructional document. Two good options are Adobe Acrobat (either Acrobat Standard or Acrobat Professional) and PDF Creator. Adobe Acrobat Standard and Professional, unlike the free Adobe Reader, are used to create, edit, and add features to PDFs. (Adobe Reader can only be used to view them.) The Professional version of the Adobe Acrobat software includes a number of features and capabilities of interest to professional users, but Acrobat Standard is often sufficient for creating PDFs for the Sony Reader. These applications are available for purchase at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/. PDF Creator is an open source alternative to Adobe Acrobat Standard or Professional for generating PDFs from documents created in Windows applications. It has been released under the terms of the GNU General Public License and is available for download at http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/. Once you have successfully installed one of these applications, you will be able to create PDFs using the print menu of your applications. 3