0 Adobe Reader ( Adobe Acrobat )

Adobe Acrobat is a set of application software developed by Adobe Systems to view, create, manipulate, print and manage files in Portable Document Format (PDF). All parts of the set, except Adobe Reader (formerly Acrobat Reader), are proprietary commercial programs, while the latter is available as freeware and can be copied from Adobe's website. Adobe Reader enables users to view and print PDF files but has negligible PDF creation capabilities. Acrobat and Reader are widely used as a method of presenting information with a fixed layout similar to a paper publication.

Since the early 1990s, the Acrobat product has had several competitors, some of which used their own document formats, such as:

• AnyView from Binar Graphics company.
• Common Ground from No Hands Software company.
• Envoy from WordPerfect Corporation.
• Folio from NextPage company.
• Replica from Farallon Computing company.
• WorldView from Interleaf company.
• DjVu from AT&T Laboratories/DjVu Project/LizardTech/Varolmak/Caminova.

By the late 1990s PDF had become the de facto standard. This has resulted in the development of both free and commercial programs that create or manipulate PDF. Adobe also allows Acrobat plug-ins to be developed by third parties, which can add extra functions to the Acrobat program.

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