About Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Files: Downloading and Installing the Adobe Reader || Reading and Printing Adobe Acrobat PDF Files || About Adobe Acrobat PDF Forms || Document Accessibility & PDF Accessibility Tools

Downloading and Installing the Adobe Reader

Files ending in .pdf are Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format files. Acrobat files can be read on your computer screen or printed using an Adobe Reader available free from Adobe.

The Adobe Acrobat Home Page contains detailed information on this product, and allows you to download free copies of Acrobat for all major hardware and operating system platforms.

If you have an internet browser installed on your system at the time that you install Adobe Acrobat, it should automatically install itself as a helper application in the browser. You will know that it is properly installed as a helper application if you can view the PDF file in the browser window, with a single row of special Acrobat buttons along the top of the viewing screen.

Reading and Printing Adobe Acrobat PDF Files

Once your reader is installed Acrobat files can be read on your computer screen or printed out in hard copy. Note that with versions of the Reader prior to 3.0, you cannot save a PDF file to your local disk after you have read it. You had to have the commercial Adobe Acrobat software in order to save the file. This limitation was removed with version 3.0 of the Reader software.

When printing Adobe Acrobat PDF files from within your web browser, do NOT use the web browser print facility. Instead, use the print button at the left end of the special Adobe Acrobat tool bar, which appears immediately above the viewing window.

About Adobe Acrobat PDF Forms

Our forms are available as Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF) files and/or or as screen-fillable Adobe Acrobat PDF Forms.

Electronic Images (PDF Image Versions)

These forms are being made available as Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF) files so that they can be printed and then used in the same manner as any traditional paper form. They can be viewed and printed with Adobe Acrobat software, including the free Adobe Reader. This software is available for use with several different computer operating systems.

Screen Fillable Forms (PDF Fillable Versions)

We are also making some of our forms available as screen-fillable Adobe Acrobat PDF Forms. These are similar to the PDF form images described above, except that they may be completed on the screen before being printed. In order to complete these forms on the screen, you must have Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader version 3.0 or above.

If you have the Acrobat software configured as a web browser plug-in application you can fill-out and print the form within your web browser. If you are using the free Adobe Reader software, however, you cannot save the form with the fill-in data for use at a later time. You will need to use the purchased version of Adobe Acrobat in order to do this. The free reader software will, however, allow you to save the blank form itself for use at a later time if you are using the filler software as a web browser plug-in application.