What is the PDF File Format?

If a file has an extension of .pdf then it most likely using the Portable Document Format (PDF), developed by Adobe Systems, Inc. PDF files maintain the original document formatting for both printing and viewing on a multiple computing platforms, including Windows, UNIX and Mac.

Viewing PDFs

An easy way to view PDF files is to download the Adobe® Acrobat® Reader,which is free software for viewing and printing Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files on major hardware and operating system platforms.

PDF Navigation Features

Certain features built into the PDF specification allow authors to expand the usefulness of a document. For example, you can add bookmarks, thumbnails of each page, internal and external links, form fields, article threads, buttons for navigation, notes to annotate information, and views to magnify or reduce a page to fit within the user's computer screen. PDF allows users to magnify up to 800% on screen with no loss of clarity.

PDF Size and Performance

For the Web, smaller files are better since download time depends on file size. PDF files can be optimized to reduce file sizes and can create files up to 80% smaller than their HTML counterparts.

PDF files can be "linearized" to allow the user to start viewing the document before it is fully downloaded, similar to the process used to deliver streaming video over the internet.

PDF can be interwoven seamlessly into most Web sites. This combination of HTML and PDF formats enables authors to serve content in its most appropriate format based on the demands of content versus technology. Also, on most popular Web servers there is no compression, translation, or filtering penalty for serving PDF files.

PDF Security

PDF has a well-established security feature set. Authors of PDF files can prevent users from editing, printing, and/or copying content (text and graphics). Software developers can create their own software to read, create, or modify PDF files without special permission or licensing. The only condition that Adobe insists on is that the document author's PDF security settings be respected.

Use Metadata to Enhance Your PDF

What is Metadata?

Metadata is data about a key piece of information such as an electronic document or file. For example, consider a video of a soccer match. The metadata would be the part of that video file that says "this is a video of a soccer match" or "this video is called World Cup Playoffs" or "this video is 5,353 kilobytes in size." Programs, images, documents, 3D engineering models, databases, and even entire electronic libraries each can contain metadata which help to bring them further definition, identity, and searchability.

PDF Metadata

When it comes to the Portable Document Format (PDF), metadata can be added in the form of document properties. Typically, these document properties include things like search keywords, title, author, and subject. Adding this type of information about a PDF document allows for faster, more efficient archival and document retrieval.

Some metadata is automatically generated when you first create a PDF file. Automatically created metadata includes information such as which program was used to create the document, the file size, whether or not the file has been optimized for the Web, and so on. Other metadata, such as author and keywords, is added by you.

Metadata can be stored either internally or externally. In a PDF it is stored internally, meaning the metadata is attached to the file itself and goes wherever the PDF goes.

Uses for PDF Metadata

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Adding metadata information such as title, author, and keywords to your PDF makes it much easier to find your document using an online search engine. For example, imagine you run a travel agency, and your document is a brochure that outlines the benefits of your service over your competitors. By including multiple keywords in your document metadata such as "travel abroad", "cheap fares", and "flight plus hotel," you increase the chances of a potential customer finding your document in a search.
• Database storage and retrieval: Adding metadata to your critical documents such as legal contracts, transactional records, tax records, and financial reports, ensures that these documents can be efficiently archived and retrieved using a simple search by keyword, title, author, file size, and so forth.
• Copyright information: You can use metadata to store copyright data. Adobe® Acrobat® 7.0 allows copyright metadata to be added manually. Document metadata is an ideal location for copyright information, because it is not readily visible within the body yet it is attached to the document, thus providing proper copyright notice.
• Review document properties: You can view a PDF’s metadata to determine its properties. For example, you can check to see if the file has been optimized for rapid downloading on the Web. Also, the document properties contain information about the program used to create the PDF.

General Tips for Metadata Best Practices

• Minimize keyword ambiguity: To optimize a PDF for online locating and retrieval, it is essential that the keywords used are as clear and relevant as possible. Many words can mean the same thing, and one word can have many meanings, so choose your keywords carefully. Try to use the most commonly used synonyms. For example, cars are also referred to as autos, automobiles, vehicles, and so on. You should use the most commonly used or most commonly accepted term for cars in your keyword metadata if you want potential customers to find your document.
• Consistency: If you are using metadata for archival and easy retrieval, consistency is critical when identifying titles, keywords, authors and so on. Make sure each person who is part of the process of creating, storing, and retrieving documents uses consistent naming conventions and keyword usage. For example, when entering names, be specific as to whether to use the entire first name ("James") or if just the first initial ("J.") is acceptable.
• Prevent accidental unwanted disclosure: There are many instances, especially in the legal profession, where a document’s metadata may contain sensitive information. The metadata might accidentally be seen by third parties unless it is removed. Make sure to check and remove anything from the metadata that you do not want to share before sending an important document.

Using Solid Converter PDF to Add Metadata to Your Document

Here’s how you can add important time-saving metadata to a PDF using Solid Converter PDF.

Step 1: After creating or editing your document in Word or Excel®, click Create PDF to begin the PDF conversion process.

Step 2: Check the box labeled: Prompt for document information. Once you’ve selected a save location, a file name, and an optimization setting, click the Create button to continue.

Step 3: Once you’ve clicked the Create button, a new dialog box will appear that will allow you to enter your metadata information into the fields provided. Then click OK to continue creating your PDF file.

PDF vs DOC: When to Use Each

Adobe® PDF and Microsoft® Word DOC formats are two universally accepted document formats. Each has strengths and weaknesses. So which is the best for your documents? The answer is: It depends. We’ll take a look at each of these two popular formats and discuss when it’s appropriate to use each.

When to use PDF format

• Printing: When the goal is to produce a high-quality print job in which precise page layout and high resolution images are key, then PDF is the clear choice over DOC. PDF can create a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) file which assures you that what you see on your screen is exactly what you’ll see in your print. PDF files are accepted by professional printers, whereas Word DOC files usually are not. In addition, PDF’s print-ready file transfer makes it easy to send a print-ready file to a printer in another department or even another country with little or no rework needed at the other end.
• Online Content: PDF is useful for taking high-quality documents (newsletters, catalogues, manuals, technical papers, etc.) and making them available on the internet. Not only can you secure your PDF so that it can only be read and not altered, you can also be sure that it will display correctly every time. In addition, PDFs can have a table of contents, bookmarks, intra-document hyperlinks, and searchability, so you can make your PDF behave like a Web page.
• Archiving: When compressed PDF files can be very compact, so it is ideal for storage. File layout is retained and can be viewed on all platforms. Plus, PDF files are searchable, making archived documents and items much easier to find, categorize, and organize.
• Business and Legal Documents: PDF’s are essential for business and legal documents and forms that must retain their exact appearance. These important documents must retain their integrity and security. With the PDF format, you can secure your documents so that no one can change the wording of an application or the terms of an agreement.
• Combining Multiple Formats: PDF allows you to import text from a Word document, images of various formats, Excel® spreadsheets, vector graphics, and more into a single PDF document.
• Anyone Can View It: To view a Word document, you must have proprietary software (Microsoft® Office) installed on your computer. On the other hand, a PDF can be viewed by anyone who has the free Adobe® Acrobat® Reader, which is easy to download and which comes standard on many computers running Windows operating systems. This makes PDF the preferred format for creating a document that many can view.
• File Exchange: PDF is ideal for document exchange between users. Not only is it a compact format, but it can also store metrics and information about its own appearance (layout, fonts, content, color, etc.) within the document itself. This means that it may not have to rely on the fonts and settings that may or may not be installed on a user’s computer to display properly.

When to use Word format

• Reusing Images: Images in a Word document are easy to extract and reuse. This can’t be done with a PDF, because its images are embedded.
• Word Processing: Microsoft Word is a word processor. Adobe® Acrobat® is not. Therefore, when it comes to written documents such as business letters, memos, etc., Word is much better suited for writing the actual composition. Word documents provide the benefits of spell-checking and grammar-checking, among many other useful writing tools.
• Editing: There’s no doubt that Word is a powerful document editor. It contains intuitive formatting and compositional tools that allow you to format your document as you create it. Using Word and the DOC format, it is easy to edit large areas of text, change the flow between pages, and change font sizes and styles, among other things. With a PDF file you can only a few words at a time and have very limited editing options. When it comes to editing documents, Word is a much more powerful and pliant format than PDF.

Conclusion: Which is the best format?

The best strategy is one that incorporates the use of both of these formats. The Word format is clearly the best choice for editing and making changes to works-in-progress while the PDF format is the preferred option for viewing and sharing documents. Thus, you can maintain your original document in Word format and then convert your document to PDF when it’s finished and you are ready to share it with others.

What if you’ve got a document that’s in PDF format that needs major editing? The best idea is to convert it to Word format, and make your edits. Then create a PDF from that Word document. Not only does this strategy allow you to use the powerful features of each format, but it also allows you to edit and create high-quality customized PDFs using Microsoft Word. Our Solid Converter PDF program was designed specifically for this purpose.

Advanced Table Handling in Word

Solid Converter PDF to Word version 3 features new and improved table handling capabilities. Tables are now imported and formatted as Word table objects, making them easy to edit and preventing retyping of data. You can use Word’s table manipulation tools to make changes and save the results as a Word file, PDF file, or both.

To import tables into Word, when you convert your PDF file, make sure you select Detect Tables. You can either do this in the Conversion Settings on the main user interface...

…or in the wizard on the Table Detection screen.

When your new Word document is opened, your tables will appear as Word table objects*. You can perform any of the actions you can do with tables in Word, including:

• Tabbing between cells
• Changing data
• Changing borders and shading
• Adding or removing columns or rows

*Note: In rare instances, where a table is highly complex with irregular elements, Solid Converter PDF may not be able to recognize a table. In that case, the table will be converted with text boxes rather than as a table object.

Excel Tip: Set Print Area

Sometimes it seems like getting an Excel spreadsheet to print correctly is like trying to control a wild elephant. Here's how to tame the beast: set the print area and adjust your page setup.

Step 1
Highlight Print Area

In Microsoft® Excel®, highlight all portions of the worksheet you want to print. You can do this by clicking and dragging with your mouse. If the print area is large, you can highlight the area by clicking in the upper left cell to be printed, scrolling to the end of the area you want to print, then SHIFT CLICK the lower right cell of the print area.

Step 2
Set Print Area

Select File|Print Area|Set Print Area. Everything contained in this selection will print when Print is selected.

Step 3
Select Print Preview

Select File|Print Preview or click the Print Preview button on the toolbar to see how the page will print. If your selection is too wide to print on the page, you can change the page orientation, or proceed to step 4 to scale the content.

Step 4
Scale Content (Optional)

If desired you can scale your content to make it fit on a page. Select File|Page Setup, then in the Scaling area select Fit to... to adjust the area to fit the current page. Alternately, you can adjust your page scale to a percentage of the original size.

Now when you print your page there should be no surprises as to how it will print.

Note: If you have our Solid Converter PDF v3 Professional version, keep in mind that you can print to a PDF file from Excel's File|Print menu or by clicking the Create PDF button.

(Note: All screen shots in this tip were taken with Solid Capture.)

Top 5 Tips for Successful PDF Conversions

When using Solid Converter PDF to Word to convert a PDF file into a Word DOC, you may have questions about the converted result.

For example, why does my document convert to an image instead of text? Why doesn’t it look exactly like the original? Here are five ways to improve your PDF savvy and enjoy success with your PDF conversions.

1. Understand Font Matching
   Sometimes when you receive a PDF from another source the fonts in the conversion output could look different from the original. This is often because your computer does not have the same fonts that were used when creating the original. If that happens, Solid Converter PDF will look for the closest matching font and substitute it for the original. If you need to use the exact same font, you can either (a) obtain the font and load it on your computer, or (b) use Solid Converter PDF on a computer that has those fonts loaded and perform your conversion on that computer.
   
   (Another suggestion to improve font conversion: if you have not done so already, get a copy of Solid Converter PDF v3, which features new and improved character formatting, font handling, and font matching capabilities!)



2. Select the Right Conversion Option
   When converting a document to Word you have four choices of Reconstruction Mode: Flowing, Continuous, Plain Text, or Exact. If you need to retain the key elements of a document but plan to do substantial editing, generally Flowing is the best mode to choose. If you need the PDF output to look as close to the original as possible, generally Exact is the preferred mode. Continuous and Plain Text modes remove even more formatting for those instances where you do not want to retain the formatting elements of the original PDF.



3. Detect Tables
   In the new version 3 of Solid Converter PDF (Standard or Professional) you can select the Detect Tables option. This will enable the program to locate tables within your PDF and convert them as Word table objects. The table objects can be edited and changed using Word’s table features. You can then easily change rows and columns, update data, add colors and shading, and so forth.



4. Not All PDF Files are Created Equal
   There is a definite difference between PDF files. Some are created by Solid Converter® PDF, Adobe® Acrobat®, or other PDF creation programs. These files contain information that allows us to convert to a clean, editable Word document. Others are created through optical scanning. This saves each page as an image, so when the PDF is converted to Word the output consists of one or more images. These images cannot be converted to text with PDF conversion technology.
   
   Granted, you don’t always have a choice as to which type of PDF you start with. If you must create a document out of a scanned PDF, you need to obtain an OCR (optical character recognition) program, available through other vendors. Keep in mind, however, that OCR is an imperfect technology so your output may require a lot of work afterward!



5. Get the Correct Password
   Solid Converter PDF supports Adobe’s PDF password protection standards. We will not “crack the code” on confidential documents that have been password protected. Solid Converter PDF will prompt for a password before converting protected PDF files.
   
   If you receive a PDF that requires a password to open or edit, you will need to contact the creator of the document or other person who knows the specific password(s) and get the password before attempting a conversion.