Many thanks to all those who responded to my question about Adobe Acrobat.
A summary of what I learnt follows.
You'll already have seen the informative postings on law-lib from Richard
Ure. In addition, here's what I learnt from personal replies.
o Adobe Acrobat is a piece of software that allows you to retrieve
documents from internet sites and view and print them in their original
format at your own laser printer. For example, you can print out
beautiful IRS tax forms that look exactly like the original. (I've tried
it, it's impressive.)
o You can only use Adobe Acrobat to view and print files which have been
created in "pdf" (Portable Document Format) format. Such files will have
the extension *.pdf.
According to Nick Keenan "PDF was designed as a format that allows ANY
kind of document -- text, numbers, images -- to be represented in a
consistent manner. Every PDF document looks the same on every PDF viewer
on every computer and on every printer. That's a pretty bold goal, and
PDF seems to do a reasonable job of it."
o Adobe Acrobat can be downloaded *free* from a number of different
sites. Those mentioned to me were the following (I obtained it from the
first one):
ftp.adobe.com login: anonymous
password: <your email address>
path: /pub/adobe/applications/acrobat
select DOS, Windows, Mac or whatever
(Thanks to Dina Dempsey for detailed instructions on this one.)
http://www.adobe.com/Software/Acrobat/
http://www.ustreas.gov/treasury/bureaus/irs/taxforms.html
http://www.fullfeed.com/epub/reader.html
o Examples of files available in "pdf" format:
federal tax forms, at:
ftp://fwux.fedworld.gov/pub/irs-pdf/irs-pdf.htm
US House and Senate bills from the US GPO
Business Week files
o In order to *create* PDF files, you need a programme called "Acrobat
Exchange", also by Adobe. It takes almost any type of file and converts
it to PDF.
o There are four Acrobat products: Acrobat Exchange, Distiller, Reader
and Starter Kit. Adobe can be reached at 800-862-3623.
Judy Bird jbird@qc.bell.ca
Law Librarian Tel: (514) 870-6550
Bell Canada Law Department Fax: (514) 876-4497
1050 Beaver Hall Hill, 15th Fl.
Montreal, Quebec, CANADA, H2Z 1S4
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