The Men's Project:
PDF Files

If you want to share your files with other computer users, and you need to be sure that your files are readable, then the safest option is to convert them to a Portable Document Format file - often simply called a PDF file.

The reason for this is that there are millions of computer users around the world who use thousands of different types of software. This means that you cannot be sure that they will be able to open your file since they might not own the software that you used to create the original. Indeed, even if they do have software which can open your file, there is a chance that this software might not be the same version as the one used by you and, subsequently, what they see might have a different alignment, font, text size or whatever.

Since you cannot guarantee that other computer users will always have the appropriate software to view your text and graphics files, a solution needs to be found. Portable Document Format solves this problem by providing a universal format. PDF files will appear exactly the same - whatever computer you use. Therefore, a PDF file, made from a document which was originally created using Word, will look exactly the same on someone else's machine as it did on yours. This is true even if graphics were embedded in the original file.

Because of the universal access offered by PDF, many reports, handbooks, brochures, posters, manuals etc. are now available on the Internet in this format. On this website, we make many of our publications available as PDF files.

Although you often have to pay for software that can create PDF files, the software to read them is free. This usually comes pre-installed on newer computers. However, if you do not have a PDF Reader, there are plenty available for free on the Internet. One of the main companies offering this software is the Adobe Corporation. If you click on the logo below, this will bring you to their website, and they will automatically determine which version of Adobe Reader your computer can run ...

PLEASE NOTE: As this is not our software, we cannot guarantee that it is safe from viruses or faults. Therefore, please make sure that you check this product before using it on your computer.