Do it with PDF

So you have some white pages you want to put on-line? Well, you can do it one of two ways. You can attach that nasty document to a email, and freak out your customers with "virus paranoia". OR, you could do it a quick and simple way. Do it with PDF! PDF stands for Portable Document Format. Adobe® Acrobat files are great for questionnaires,contracts, on-line forms, order sheets and just about any other white papers that you can think of. If you already have Adobe Illustrator® or PageMaker®, you can save a file as a PDF. It is only for one sheet of course, but it can save you some time and money.

If you don't own Illustrator®, or Pagemaker®, then you may want to purchase Acrobat 4.0 from Adobe® Software to create you PDF files.. Once you own the program, you can take already existing documents created in programs such as

Microsoft Word

Microsoft Excel

Microsoft PowerPoint

Microsoft Publisher

Adobe PageMaker® Plus

Corel WordPerfect

Lotus1•2•3

Lotus Notes

Paper Capture within Adobe Acrobat

Web Capture within Adobe Acrobat

For my web site, I used Illustrator to create two one page documents. I then have my clients fill out questionnaires before I start working on any projects. This helps save me time and money by finding out information that I need before I start! I used PDF for my client sites in many ways. For an Accountant Firm, I put some of their popular white papers on-line. For a shopping cart site, we created a PDF file that customers can print out and fax in instead of creating another HTML form that prints out. It comes out crystal clear on the printer as well! I could fax my forms to the clients, but it just doesn't give it a very professional look when there are black lines and dots from my fax machine on it!

I can either upload my PDF files to my website and link to them as any other link. Instead of the HTML document such as webpage.html I would just put document.pdf as the link. For examplet...<a href="document.pdf">Link to my PDF file</a>

I also use my PDF files in other ways. When I send my client comps, I just save them as PDF and send it to them in an email. I make sure to notify my clients when they first sign on that I send my files this way. I also give them a link to the free viewer so they don't get frustrated down the line. I sometimes send contracts this way as well. It makes it so simple!

If you can't afford Acrobat®, don't feel too bad. You can try purchasing older versions of Acrobat® from Ebay®! Make sure they are not "educational only" versions, and you can just pay for the upgrade. Beware of sellers. Make sure you get the right platform if you want to use right away. Most Adobe® products can be upgraded cross-platform, so you shouldn't have a problem if it is legitamate. Also, make sure to ask the seller if it is a NFR(not for resale) copy. If it is, you will not be able to upgrade your product! You could save a lot of money buying a product off of someone who needs the cash quick! If you have any questions about piracy issues, you can always contact Adobe and make sure you can upgrade!