What is Adobe Acrobat?

Acrobat is used to view, create, edit, and print PDF files, or Portable Document Format. Most computer users today are familiar with PDF files and the icon that's used to represent them. Users are also usually familiar with Adobe Reader, which is the program you can use for free to view and read PDF files. However, Reader cannot be used to edit and manipulate files like Adobe Acrobat.

Why Use Adobe Acrobat and PDF

Whenever you use Adobe Acrobat, you'll be working with PDF files. You can use Acrobat to prepare PDF files for commercial printing or to distribute via the web or email. That said, though, most files that you'll open and edit in Adobe Acrobat were usually saved in another file format, then converted to PDF. So, why would you want to convert to PDF in the first place? Why would you want to use Acrobat to edit those files instead of keeping them in their original file format, such as MS Word or Excel?

Below are just some of the benefits to using Acrobat as well as a PDF format.

Printing. PDF can create a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) file. This means that what you see on your screen is exactly what you'll get when you print. That's not the case with MS Word or other programs. If you've used those before, you know that text and items can be shifted during print. When you use PDF to prepare your files for printing, everything will print to look just as it does on your screen.
Online Content. When you put a PDF file online, you know that it can be easily accessed, downloaded, and read, but you also know it can't be altered. Plus, just as with printing, you know it displays the way that it should every time someone reads it. Plus, using Acrobat, you can add a table of contents, bookmarks, hyperlinks, and searchability. We'll show you how to use Acrobat to turn a PDF into something that can function like a web page.
Archiving. You can compress PDF files and make them very compact so they don't take up as much storage space.
What's New in Adobe Acrobat

The latest version of Acrobat contains some major improvements and added features to make using it even easier and better than before. If you're already familiar with Acrobat, here's what you should watch for:
Easier than ever fillable-form creation, form fill-in, and tracking.
The lastest version of Acrobat launches in a shorter time than previous versions. It launches in about half the time of 8.
You can now include Adobe Flash audio and video inside PDFs.
With better OCR and scanner support, it's now easier to turn paper that you scan into editable text.
You can now convert web pages - even those with rich or interactive media-into PDFs.
Need to search for a PDF? You can now search multiple PDF files in a folder.

Interested in learning more? Why not take an online Adobe Acrobat course?

You can now use Acrobat.com for shared reviews.

A Quick Look at the Program

Once you get Adobe Acrobat installed on your computer, you can either open it by clicking on the program's icon () or by going to the Start menu and finding it in All Programs.

Once you open the program, this is what you will see:

At the top, you'll see the Title bar.

You can right click in the Title bar to minimize or maximize the window, move the window, resize the window, or close the program.

On the right hand side of the Title bar, you can click the minimize, maximize, or close buttons, shown in that order below:

Below the Title bar is the Menu bar:

The Menu bar contains tools and commands that you will use to work with PDF files.

Below the Menu bar are the toolbars:

Below the toolbars is the Document area, or the Document Pane.

Above the Document area, you can see controls that you'll use to save, print, view pages, and zoom.

Take some time to click on toolbars or to explore the Menu bar. Learning where everything is located will make it easier to start to use your version of Adobe Acrobat.