By Martin Jansen, Owner of Jansen-PCINFO
Just about every modern office suite allows for the creation of PDF files when sending out documents to the masses. There is every reason to take advantage of this capability.
Why is this important?
- Not everybody has the same programs on their computers or cell phones. For instance, the sender of the document may have Microsoft 365 while receivers may not.
- However, just about everyone will have a PDF reader on their devices, if not, many are available at no cost.
- Font mismatch – when the sender outputs documents with different fonts, those same fonts may not be on the receiver’s computer. The receiver’s computer substitutes fonts as closely as possible but the viewing results are often terrible.
- Portable Document Format by Adobe has long been the standard for receiving important files while .docx, .xlsx, .potx, .pub or any of the open document formats are not.
- PDFs are not easily edited by the receivers of the document. The receivers see the document just as it was created by the sender and no changes (inadvertent or intentional) can be made while viewing in a PDF reader.
- Senders get very little complaints when they send PDF documents as compared to sending files in proprietary formats for all the above reasons.
When the sender has completed the editing of a document for which they plan to send to the public, they spend a little extra time by saving and sending it as a PDF. They are smart.