Jim wrote to me several weeks ago asking me a very good question, thanks, Jim!
Someone sent him an email with an attached document which he needed to fill out and return. Jim, like me, did not want to print it, fill it out by hand, take a picture of it and send it back. He wanted to be able to type in his responses by computer and then send the document back via his computer.
I guessed that Jim received a PDF file. PDF which stands for, “Portable Document Format” was started back in 1982. My supposition was correct as they are very common today. A PDF is a document created so that it can be viewed by anyone on any computer, phone, tablet, etc. anywhere. Especially, in the old days, I may have written a file in Microsoft Word and sent it to you. If you did not have Word you could not read the document from me. The PDF is made to be seen by anyone making it totally “portable.”
No matter which word processor or computer created a document, all of the original fonts, colors, graphics, etc. could be saved as an Adobe Acrobat (PDF) file. Then this file could be used by anyone on any computer. This latest free reader, “Adobe Acrobat Reader DC” can be downloaded from get.adobe.com/reader. Be careful on the download page and uncheck both of the boxes in the center section about installing McAfee; hopefully, you already have antivirus software and you DO NOT need two.
If the reader is free, how does Adobe make money? Acrobat Reader DC is free, but the full Acrobat application costs $20.99 per month to purchase the full program. However, there are many other programs today which can also create PDF files including MS Word.
As with Jim’s, these documents or forms can be made editable. If the form is editable (which many are) you can open them using the free reader program above. Then when you press the TAB key it will cause the cursor to jump to the next blank. To move back any number of text box areas use the ALT + TAB key combo and move back one. Type in your responses and when you save the file they will become permanently added to the document. Be cautious since you cannot undo them once the file is saved. I will usually make a copy of the original file just in case I have to go back and retype something.
There is another type of PDF which is named a “Flat Form.” My opinion is that you get a flat form PDF when someone messed up and forgot to make the form editable. But that is my opinion because I guess some may have a reason for this. To fill out a flat form is easy but takes more of an explanation than I can give here. Take a look at the following YouTube video if you need to fill out a PDF that does not allow you to TAB to the blanks, ghtech.site/flat-pdf. It is a little hard to hear, so turn up your volume. Though harder to hear it is an excellent demonstration of what you can do.
Let me know if this helped you out and have fun with PDFs!