PDF In-Depth

All categories

Editing & Publishing

Doc-Management & Workflow

Best Practices & Usability

Collaboration & Exchange

Pre-press & Print

Development

Forms & FDF

Standards & Accessibility

Acrobat 7.0

Acrobat 6.0

JavaScript

Acrobat 5.0

Acrobat 4.0 and Older

Industry Heavyweights





PDF In-depth Archive

Our in-depth articles are archived in a series of categories for easy access. Select the category to the left to display only the articles related to that category.

The limitations of Acrobat 9 Pro for document collaboration

John Mohan

PDF-based document collaboration can be a great boon to many workflows, saving time and money. When things go wrong, though, it can cause a lot of headaches. With that in mind, it's important to get the set-up right from the start. In this in-depth article, Rosebud PLM's John Mohan outlines key limitations of Acrobat 9's built-in document collaboration options.

Enterprise & Government   May 14, 2009

PDF-to-Word Conversion: Why it's so hard to do

Richard Crocker

When a file is converted to PDF, it loses its meaning. On the surface all the information is there, and to your eyes it looks exactly the same, but underneath that, all the method, structure and intelligence used when designing the original document has been lost.† This forms the heart of the challenge faced when attempting to convert PDF files back to formats like DOC (Microsoft Word), RTF and HTML, and is not dissimilar to those faced when OCRing paper-based documents.

Enterprise & Government   March 19, 2009

What do PDF and social media have in common?

Nettie Hartsock

In the early days of PDF, most non-PDF people did not understand how much benefit this new technology was going to bring across all verticals in terms of changing how we all use content on a daily basis. And there really still is no way to predict in the next five or ten or twenty years all the new things that are going to emerge from the PDF world.

Enterprise & Government   March 12, 2009

Sponsor Article: Five interesting things you can do with PDF

Jean Haney

Leveraging fifteen years of experience converting PDF into other formats, Visual Integrity Co-Founder Jean Haney outlines some of her favourite uses of PDF.

Enterprise & Government   November 13, 2008

PDF/A Update: Exclusive interview with Dr. Hans Bärfuss, CEO, PDF Tools AG

Nettie Hartsock

At Planet PDF, one of our goals is to always update our readers on all the latest and greatest affecting the PDF arena and its users. So we thought it might be good to get an exclusive interview about developments in the PDF/A standard for long-term archival with Dr. Hans Bärfuss, CEO, PDF Tools AG. Planet PDF's Nettie Hartsock reports.

Enterprise & Government   October 30, 2008

Sponsor Spotlight: How Visual Integrity brought the power of PDFs to technical writers

Nettie Hartsock

As part of the ongoing series on Planet PDF's sponsors, we wanted to commemorate Visual Integrity's contributions to PDF as the company celebrates its 15th year in the industry.

Enterprise & Government   October 16, 2008

How Encryption Works

Michael Cartwright

When you set up password security for a PDF document you are first asked to select an encryption level for the PDF file. If you're a computer geek you may immediately understand what this means, but if you're not you may be puzzled. What does encryption mean and how does it affect your security choices?

Enterprise & Government   October 03, 2008

Make PDF Files Web-Friendly

Michael Cartwright

Is PDF really "unfit for human consumption" (as Jakob Nielsen says) or just misunderstood? Actually, PDFs can definitely be Web-friendly if they are handled with care. We'll teach you how to present PDFs on the Web in a way that minimizes usability problems and unpleasant surprises.

Enterprise & Government   October 01, 2008

Using Metadata to Enhance your PDF Files

Michael Cartwright

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. We take a look at metadata for PDF and how it you can use it to improve the files you publish.

Enterprise & Government   September 30, 2008

PDF vs Word (DOC): When to Use Each

Michael Cartwright

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. Michael Cartwright takes a look at each of these two popular formats and discusses when it's appropriate to use each.

Enterprise & Government   September 26, 2008

Acrobat 9: A child grows up

Thad McIlroy

Thad McIlroy evaluates the latest version of Acrobat, and he likes what he sees. In his opinion, the Acrobat 9 product family reflects a fully mature product, with the version 9 release marking its "emergence into adulthood". Read the full review for more.

Enterprise & Government   September 18, 2008

The content that endures: What to know about PDF/A

Duff Johnson

What is PDF/A? Why do we need it and how do we use it? Duff Johnson answers these questions and more in his in-depth look at PDF/A -- the standard for long-term document archival.

Enterprise & Government   July 17, 2008

Sponsor Spotlight: LockLizard

Nettie Hartsock

As part of the ongoing series on Planet PDF's sponsors, we wanted to highlight LockLizard's DRM software products including Lizard Safeguard, Lizard Protector and Lizard Guardian.

Enterprise & Government   July 10, 2008

Review: Adobe Acrobat 9 sets foot in Web 2.0 with web-based live collaboration

Filipe Pereira Martins and Anna Kobylinska

With the release of Acrobat 9, Adobe's focus is all about re-inventing collaboration to enhance efficiency and performance. Some features such as forms have been somewhat improved, others, such as preflight, have been considerably enhanced. Yet if there is one signature feature of this release, it is live collaboration with free web services on Acrobat.com. This review by Filipe Pereira Martins and Anna Kobylinska provides an in-depth look at the new version of Adobe's flagship PDF product.

Enterprise & Government   July 03, 2008

Sponsor Spotlight: PDFTron

Nettie Hartsock

As part of the ongoing series on Planet PDF's sponsors, we wanted to highlight PDFTron and its innovative PDFNet SDK v4 which was released in February. The latest version added full Java support to the PDF library. Version 4.0 also includes a new Java interface that offers API functionality as a set of Java classes to give developers an easier and more expedient way to integrate PDFTron's PDFNet API into already existing applications.

Developer   April 10, 2008

PAGES: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

PDF In-Depth Free Product Trials
PDF News PDF Products

Debenu Aerialist 11

The ultimate plug-in for Adobe Acrobat. Advanced splitting, merging, stamping, bookmarking, and link...

Download free demo

LockLizard Safeguard PDF Security

Made specifically for publishers of high value information published in PDF format, it protects your PDF...

Download free demo

Search Planet PDF
more searching options...
Platinum Sponsor

Debenu - Unrivaled PDF Productivity | PDF Library, Acrobat Plug-Ins

Create & Edit PDF - Nitro PDF Software

Silver Sponsors

LockLizard DRM PDF Security Quick PDF Library: The Unrivaled PDF Developer Toolkit

Most Popluar Articles
Planet PDF Newsletter
Featured Product

Debenu PDF Aerialist 11

The ultimate plug-in for Adobe Acrobat. Advanced splitting, merging, stamping, bookmarking, and link control. Take Acrobat to the next level.

Featured Event

Adobe Digital Marketing Summit

March 20-23, 2012 -- Salt Palace Convention Center, Salt Lake City, Utah

The Digital Marketing Summit is the premier event for digital marketers and advertisers to learn about and share key strategies for driving marketing innovation. Attend Summit to learn how you can create, measure, and optimize digital experiences to revolutionize how the world engages with ideas and information.