About PDF Files

Why PDF Files?

Several documents on our site are distributed as Adobe PDF (Portable Document Format) files. This has several advantages:

• the original format and layout is preserved;
• the files are often much smaller than the same documents in the original format (e.g., MS Word);
• files can be made with different programs, but always viewed with the same program;
• the files can be viewed on any platform (Windows, Macintosh, etc).

How to view the files?

To view the files, you need the Adobe Acrobat Reader. For more information, see the Adobe Acrobat Web site; the reader is available from the download page.