Adobe reader

[MrsER]

What does Adobe reader do?

[Buenchico]

It enables you to open files in the PDF format.

PDF is a useful format because any document that can be printed (whether it be a Word document, a scanned booklet, a Photoshop image, a Publisher document, a Quark Xpress document, or whatever) can easily be converted to PDF. So people can make files available to anyone who's got Adobe Reader on their PC (which nearly everybody does), irrespective of whether the recipient has got the original programs in which those documents were created.

Chris

[VHG]

PDF stands for Portable Document Format.

PDF was created (by Adobe) so that any document could be read on any computer without the need to buy expensive software.

So you can download Adobe Reader for free and put it on your PC.

Then if someone wants to send you a file in say Word format (but you dont have Word) they can convert it to a PDF file and send it to you, and you can read it.

The other beauty of PDF files is that you cant change them, so a company can send out marketing or advertising material knowing that the people who get it cannot change it.

[Wak]

You'll find that Adobe Reader is very memory hungry and slow to appear. I always use Foxit Reader which I find much smaller and quicker.