PDF

PDF® (Portable Document Format) is a document description language. PDF files preserve the appearance of documents independently of the text processor or operating system on which they are generated.

PDF is a registered trade mark of Adobe Systems. Although commercial tools may be required for generating PDF files, it is possible to read and print PDF documents with viewing tools that can be obtained free of charge for most computers and operating systems.

Generating PDF files

Generating PDF files from LaTeX

The most common way to generate a PDF file from a LaTeX source is to first output a PostScript file, and then convert it to PDF. In order to keep the size or your PDF file small, we advise you to use PostScript fonts in your source LaTeX document or, alternatively, use pslatex instead of latex to process it.

Generating PDF files from other text processors

If you are using a text processor such as Frame Maker,® or Microsoft Word,® you can generate PDF files in three different ways:
  • You can generate a PostScript file and then convert it to PDF.
  • GoBCL.com at www.goBCL.com offers free conversion of MS Word documents to pdf. Registration is required.
  • If you have Adobe Acrobat (notice that this a commercial product which cannot be obtained for free), you may choose to install the PDF printer driver that comes with it. On Windows® operating systems, you get a (virtual) PDF printer installed as a result. You can then print your file to the PDF printer as follows
    • Open your document in the appropriate Windows application
    • Select the File/Print menu item
    • Select Acrobat PDFwriter from the list of printers
    • Select the Properties/Font Embedding tab, and check the Embed all fonts box. This ensures that your pdf document may be properly viewed and printed on other systems
    • Click OK to return to the Print menu
    • Click OK to print the document. Alter the file name as needed, and make sure to which folder the file is written
In order to keep the size or your PDF file small, we advise you to use only PostScript fonts when writing your document.

Scientific Workplace users beware

If you create a pdf document from your SWP Tex file then make sure that all fonts are embedded in the pdf file. If you do not use this option then the pdf document will not look the way you expect it to and the equations will not be readable on computers that do not have the SWP fonts installed.

Generating PDF files from PostScript files

One common way of producing a PDF file is to start with a PostScript file and use a PostScript to PDF conversion tool. There are three kinds of such converters:
  • The best known tool is probably the Adobe Acrobat Distiller. This is a high quality tool, which produces compact PDF code, but it is a commercial product which cannot be obtained for free.
  • An alternative is the ps2pdf tool, which is part of the Ghostscript package. This tool can convert most PostScript files to PDF, although the generated files may often be bigger than those obtained with the Acrobat Distiller.
  • There are various sites on the worldwide web that offer free conversion to pdf.Ps2pdf.com at www.ps2pdf.com converts postscript files to pdf.
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PDF FAQ's

Viewing PDF files

  • The most common tool for viewing PDF files is the Adobe Acrobat Reader, which can be installed for free for the most common operating systems.
  • You can also view PDF files with the Ghostscript-based tools Ghostview (on Unix or GNU/Linux X11 boxes), or GSView (on MS Windows and OS-2).

Checking PDF files

To obtain high resolution pdf files it is preferred to use scalable Type 1 embedded fonts. With scalable Type 1 fonts the pdf file can be viewed in any zoom mode with no loss of font quality. If you have been using Type 3 bitmapped fonts in your PDF files, you will see a serious loss of font resolution as soon as you zoom in.

Although the differences between Type 3 bitmap fonts and the Type 1 fonts are usually apparent upon inspection, you can check which fonts are used in a PDF file by selecting

File >> Document Info >> Fonts
in the Acrobat Reader or Exchange. From the Font Info window click List All Fonts. The Type column will display whether the fonts are Type 1 or Type 3.

Further information

Further information on PDF can be found on Automatica's PDF FAQ page.

Updated February 2003.
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