About Adobe Acrobat files (.pdf files)
Acrobat appears to be Adobe's chosen successor to PostScript as a
page description language. You can download and/or view .pdf files
if you first download the Acrobat Reader 3.0 software (free) from
Adobe's Web site. Acrobat adds to PostScript a number of
important elements of functionality:
- Links: Acrobat documents may contain internal
hyperlinks, like those that you see on WWW pages. If you are reading
a mathematical paper, and on page 29 the author says "it follows
from Lemma 3.2 that ..." you may see that the words "Lemma 3.2" are
in blue on your screen. If you click on those words you will be
transported immediately to a view of Lemma 3.2, back on page 13,
say. One more click on the "Back" button, and you'll be back where
you were before the click. Links to bibliographic items, to theorems
and lemmas and definitions, etc. can be of great value in reading a
complex paper. These links will probably begin an increasing
divergence between the printed and the electronic publication of
mathematical thoughts. Both have their strengths and weaknesses, but
the hyperlinks are a strong point of the Acrobat format for
mathematical purposes.
- Hardware and software requirements: No special printer
is needed to print Acrobat files, and no costly software is needed
to view them.
- "Byteserving": You can start to view a .pdf file even
before it has been completely downloaded to you. As soon as your
system has received the first page of the document, you will see it
on your screen, and the rest of the document will continue to be
downloaded.
- The interface: Reading a .pdf file on your computer's
screen is a fairly pleasant experience. The tools that are provided
for pushing the page up or down (the "hand" tool), the choices of
magnification, the navigation by links, and the appearance of the
type fonts onscreen, are all helpful.
Download the Acrobat Reader 3.0 software by clicking on the link
above, and try reading some of our .pdf files. Let us know what you
think.