What is a PDF?

For those of us in the print and graphic design business, a file sent as a PDF is like handing us the birthday present that we asked for.  We know what we are getting, we don't have to return what we got and wait for something different, we know it is going to work, and we don't have to waste precious time thinking about what we are going to do to it so that it resembles what we want.
PDF stands for Portable Document Format. They are basically an image of a document.  PDF's are created using Adobe Acrobat. There are two types of PDFs: native and scanned. Native is made from a document that was electronically processed. A scanned PDF is a scanned document that is physically scanned on a machine and saved to a file.  PDF files are much easier for graphic designers to work with because files are easier to transmit between different computers running different operating systems without losing the look or feel of the original source file.  Time is money, and when designers have to spend 15 to 20 minutes per file looking for original fonts or trying to figure out where a sentence begins and ends design time and fees can add up very quickly. PDF's compress large files, are very quick to create, and allow different levels of security to be added (watermarks, passwords, etc.).
The downside to PDF's?  Although they resemble word files, they are not in an editable document format
 ( this can also be an upside if you have created something that you do not want the content changed in).
So, next time you think about hitting "Save As" think about saving your document as a PDF.