Another common problem is preserving formatting. How do you distribute electronic files in a manner that will always look as you intended it to on your recipients’ computer screens or when printed on their printers? Many have published HTML files that looked great in Internet Explorer, only to find that the information looked different when displayed in Netscape or a different version of Internet Explorer or perhaps some other Web browser. Sometimes a different Web browser might not display parts of your information at all.

A third issue is the copying of data. With most files, it is very easy for other people to electronically extract information from within your work and insert it into their own. Sometimes this is a good thing, but at other times it may not be so desirable. Perhaps you want your own information to remain just that: clearly identified as your own. You might even want your copyright statement to be clearly identified on all information you publish and distribute. Luckily, you can easily publish your documents in such a way that information from within your documents cannot easily be copied electronically.

There is, however, one file format that is universal across almost all operating systems. Some years ago, the Adobe Corporation created the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF). PDF has now become the de facto standard for electronic documentation distribution. Once a file is created in PDF format, anyone can read your document across a broad range of hardware and software, and it will look exactly as you intended — with layout, fonts, color, links, and images intact. In short, it will look like a document published with a desktop publishing program. It will look the same on any operating system, including Windows, Macintosh, Linux, UNIX, OS/2, and even handheld Palm computers. Best of all, the required software to view your PDF document is completely free. As a result, everyone can read your document. In fact, many of the genealogy CD-ROM disks reviewed in this newsletter were created in Adobe’s PDF format.

The choice of PDF format also gives the author control over the ability of recipients to manipulate the text and pictures in a document. By setting security options in Acrobat, the author can give his or her PDF documents a certain level of copy protection. One of the options available within Adobe Acrobat program that creates PDF files will prevent users from copying text or images, effectively disabling the normal "copy-and-paste" functions. Other options prevent users from printing the document or changing the features that the author has set. You can even set a password to prevent viewing by would-be users who do not have the password. To be sure, anyone who can view a document can always re-type the information by hand. However, PDF files make it very difficult to electronically extract bits and pieces of information from within a document.

I should point out that this protection is not 100 percent guaranteed. In fact, sophisticated hackers have succeeded in cracking Adobe PDF files and extracting the original information. However, a lot of software skills are needed to crack a PDF file. Even owners of the Adobe software that creates PDF files cannot easily crack a PDF file created by someone else. Only a handful of people have ever managed to open a PDF file, and one of those even spent a few days in jail for his activity. (For further details about the jailed Russian computer hacker, look at: source one and source two). While not 100 percent safe, you can assume that, if you select the proper options, there is about a 99.99999 percent chance that a PDF document you create will never be "cracked" by anyone else. Few people are willing to risk incarceration for extracting data from your genealogy PDF file!

While the PDF viewer software that recipients use is free, the software required to create PDF files may be expensive. For many years, there was but one choice: Adobe Acrobat. Adobe sells the PDF creation software for Windows, Macintosh, Linux, and UNIX. The list price for the Adobe Acrobat file creation software is $249 (U.S. funds) although discount stores may sell it for $200 or a bit less.

In the past year or so, lower cost alternatives have appeared. Several programs, such as the latest version of WordPerfect, now include the capability to crate PDF files without purchasing the $200+ program from Adobe. Even one genealogy program will now create PDF files: Family Origins version 10 is a $30 program that will create PDF files for many of its reports. (Further information is available at: www.formalsoft.com). I havel also described a free program to create PDF files in the next article.

In summation, if you are looking to publish information on the Web or on CD-ROM, you should consider publishing PDF files. The recipient will see the information you publish in its original format, with all fonts, color, images and links in place. It can be viewed on Windows, Macintosh, Linux, and other operating systems. By selecting the proper options when you create the PDF file, the data within your file will not be extracted electronically.

For more information about Adobe’s Acrobat PDF format and the Adobe software needed to read or to create these files, go to: www.adobe.com. Once you have installed the free Adobe Acrobat reader software, you can look at an excellent example of a PDF file.

• Read the next article in this issue.
  
• Return to the previous article in this issue.
  
• Return to the Table of Contents