Adobe Systems’ Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF) has become the World Wide Web’s standard format for sharing documents across platforms and applications with their original look and feel intact. The PDF format is an efficient way for Montgomery County Public Schools to distribute documents in a secure and professional manner, maintaining images, tables, charts, and graphs that are not possible to include in text-only files. After our publications are designed for print, Acrobat lets us repurpose them for electronic distribution, allowing us to make the best use of limited resources such as staff time.

Adobe provides the Reader application for many operating systems: Windows, Mac, Palm OS, Pocket PC, Symbian OS, Linux, and many others. You may download a copy of the FREE "Acrobat Reader" application by visiting Adobe Systems' Acrobat Reader download page, or find out more about Acrobat at the Adobe Acrobat Family page.

Please see the Adobe Acrobat Alternative Download Page for easy access to the Reader application in many different formats. Older versions of Reader are also available for use with older browsers.

To view a PDF on the web, your computer must have the free Adobe Acrobat Reader application installed, and your web browser (Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator) must be configured to use it as either a plug-in or as a helper application.

If the Adobe Acrobat PDF Reader software is configured as a plug-in, the browser will download the file and display it in the browser window. If Acrobat is installed as a helper application, clicking on a PDF file starts a new window and then Acrobat downloads the file to display it.

For help configuring your computer to view PDF files, please see Adobe Systems' Acrobat Reader Support page.

To download a PDF file without displaying it in your browser, “right-click” (Windows) or "control-click" (Macintosh) on a link to the PDF file and direct your computer to download the file. You will be prompted to indicate where to place the file. After it is downloaded, click on the file. The Acrobat Reader will pop it up as an application from which you can print. This may be faster when you plan to download a series of PDF files.

Online conversion tools for Adobe Acrobat PDF files. These online tools convert PDF documents into either HTML or ASCII text, which can then be read by a number of common screen reader programs.

Accessible Acrobat Reader Download page.

You will need the full version of Adobe Acrobat. Webmaster Software

Updated October 9, 2003 | Contact Webmaster