Opening a PDF

A PDF file is one with a file name with the extension .pdf. It stands for Portable Document Format and is universal around the world as a small sized file for the fast transmission of documents, and millions are sent round the world daily. They are like the email system but contain much more than an email could, yet still are quite small in size. PDFs are opened with a program called Adobe Acrobat, the viewer of which is available free to download from the Adobe site link above.

Once you have downloaded the Acrobat installer, you double-click it and it installs the program on your hard disc without you having to do a thing, except if you wish it to install somewhere other than it's default directory, when you will have to tell it where. As part of the install process it will inform Windows that it is there and that Windows is to use it to open files with a PDF extension. Then, any PDF file you double click on the icon for, will first start Acrobat, and then open the file in it.

PDFs may contain many pages, even a whole book. To navigate through the pages, you use the Page Down and Page Up keys on the right of the keyboard. The PDF may also contain bookmarks which are displayed down the left hand side of the screen. These take you to predetermined places in the book, usually the first pages of chapters, and once there, you can go through the chapter using the Page Down key, or back with the Page Up key. At any time you can click on another bookmark and go to another place in the book, or return to the beginning. This is to enable fast navigation to wherever you wish to read.

Closing a PDF is simple, either click on close file, or just close Acrobat and the PDF file which is open in it will close also. Or you can minimise the program in the usual way to the bottom bar, and return to the page you were at later.