PDFs are one of the most popular formats for documents. They are easily searched, indexed, and shared. They open quickly on a phone, pad, or computer without any change to appearance.
Businesses that require high security for their shared documents use a PDF converter before sending links for document-sharing to recipients or including the papers in emails.
What is a PDF?
A Portable Document Format (PDF) is the format of choice when someone wants to share a document they don’t want to be modified. There are various versions of PDF converters, but the most popular and accessible is Adobe Acrobat.
What Makes PDF the Most Popular File Format?
People use PDFs because the file format is universal. You can create a document in Word or Google Docs or whatever file format you use to write with and then provide them as PDFs.
Whoever you send the copy to receives it exactly as you created and saved it. Furthermore, you can convert any file to a PDF. Yes, any file can be turned into a PDF and transmitted as you created it. You can even save copies of web pages as PDF documents.
Transmitting sensitive information is a cinch using PDF. When you convert a document to a PDF, you can password protect it. This added layer of security ensures that only the person you want to view the document can. For one group that sends secure documents over the internet, PDFs offer more protection. That group is the legal community.
How and Why Law Firms Use PDFs?
Law firms and corporate legal departments often deal in highly classified information. Just one aspect of this involves lawsuits. One phase of any case is the discovery phase. Discovery includes, in part, each side requesting and receiving documents from the other side. If provided on a CD, flash drive, or over the internet, the papers sent must be delivered just as preserved. PDFs offer the best format for this necessity.
Another advantage for people concerned about disclosing too much in shared documents is to use PDFs to redact information and eliminate metadata. Redacting censors or obscures parts of papers you don’t want others to see.
Metadata is data about data. It resides within document files and tells much about the visible document. For example, metadata tells who authored the record, the date of creation, when and by whom modified, and the file size. Metadata also appears within images, videos, spreadsheets, webpages, and more.
How to Convert a File to PDF Online?
Using an online PDF converter is free and straightforward. Follow the link to the Adobe site. There you can upload a file, and conversion will begin immediately.
When the conversion completes, download your PDF. There are many tools available on the free version, but performing some functions, like removing metadata, requires owning the product.