The PDF at its 20-th Birthday

Did you know that the PDF is turning 20 this year? PDF has undergone various modifications and updates since its invention in the early 1990s. We invite you to join us in celebrating the 20th birthday of PDF. And we have a little gift for you – you will find it at the end of this article :-) It may seem like the PDF has been around with us like forever, but what most people do not know is that this agile and robust document format is still in its teens. The PDF has withstood the test of time and competition to remain the coolest document format used by almost 90% of computer users all over the world. PDF was invented around 1993 in an attempt to give users who handle large document volumes with a secure, portable and multi platform document format that will promote sharing of documents and at the same time protect the information contained in the documents. PDF in a nutshell, is simply a container that stores a wide variety of contents such as text, graphics, images etc as well as the information about the fonts and color used in a document. PDF was a revolutionary invention, and users everywhere have benefited a lot from this powerful technology. One major benefit worth mentioning is that the PDF removed the barrier people faced when it comes to exchanging documents between different operating systems. Compared to Microsoft Word, the PDF is a favorite of many people for various reasons including the following:

• ISO, an international standardization body is responsible for maintaining pdf standards and specification unlike MS Word specifications that are proprietary and solely held by Microsoft.
• Many users trust PDF files because they are not easily attacked by viruses. MS Word on the other hand has a long history of virus attacks.
• The software for reading PDF files is available free of charge for example the Adobe Reader. MS office on the other hand requires licensing by Microsoft which can be quite expensive.
• PDF files appear the same regardless of the system or device used to view them. This contrasts with MS Word documents that can only appear as intended on the devices using the same systems as the one that was used to create the documents.

Universal Document Converter (UDC) is a smart tool for converting documents to PDF and other similar file formats. PDF documents created using UDC are PDF/A specification compliant, this means that documents created using the UDC can be stored for a long time without destroying the document structure or the contents. Order a Universal Document Converter today and get an 20% discount. Join us in celebrating the 20-th birthday of PDF!