Once you have downloaded the Adobe Reader software, you will be able to use any PDF file someone sends to you. Click on any filename that ends in ".pdf" , and the file will be opened in Adobe Reader, which will allow you to read it or save it, but not to make changes to it.
Adobe's owner would like to sell you software to edit or write PDF files. There are websites, however, that will convert files from other formats to PDF for you at no charge.
I use one to convert the Word version of the SaleList to PDF; you can download it for free at www.doPDF.com. It will be added to your list of printers and you run it just like printing your Word document, but it gives you a .pdf document to save instead of printing on paper.
I used to convert from a Word file to a .pdf file by going to http://convert.neevia.com and following the directions. It seems to run more quickly than the "doPDF" software. If your file is larger than 1 megabyte (MB), however, you get an error message instead of output. The "doPDF" software doesn't have that problem.
The "convert.neevia" website will do other conversions, though. A particularly valuable one will convert a Word document to a .jpg picture so you can insert entire pages online just as they look in Word, without having to use HTML coding to format them. The output is of higher quality than a .jpg made by printing a page and then scanning it to make a picture. Of course, it is a picture, no longer a text document, so the page cannot be copied to Word and edited or changed.
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last revised:10/12/11