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Adobe Acrobat is a family of computer programs designed to view, create, manipulate and manage files in Adobe’s Portable Document Format (PDF). Created by Adobe Systems, Adobe Acrobat includes software intended for commercial use as well as freeware (intended for personal use).

Adobe Systems Inc. is a company based at San Jose, California, USA. The company was co-founded by John Warnock and Charles Geschke in December 1982. They named their company after the Adobe Creek that ran behind one of the founder’s homes. In December 2005, Adobe acquired one of their competitors, Macromedia. The company has development centres across the world including the United States, Canada, Germany and India.

Adobe Acrobat was earlier known as Adobe Reader. Initially, Adobe Systems released a single commercial version of Adobe Acrobat 1.0 for the Macintosh computer. A free copy of the Acrobat Reader was later made available, which can now be downloaded from Adobe’s official website. This freeware can be used to view and print documents in the portable document format. Currently, the Adobe Acrobat product family includes the Adobe Reader 8 , the Adobe Acrobat 8 Standard , the Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional , the Adobe Acrobat 3D Version 8 and a collection of server and specialist products. In 2006, Adobe Reader was released which included Acrobat 8 Elements, Acrobat 8 Standard and other related packages.

Adobe actually developed the PDF file format in 1993 for easier document exchange. The PDF format was platform independent and could be viewed on computers with Windows, Macintosh and other operating systems. It was designed as a fixed-layout format, which meant the layout would not change when it was viewed on other computers. This format is a 2D document in which text and static images could be displayed. Currently, the PDF is an open standard with the ISO 32000 certification.

Earlier versions of the PDF limited the use of a PDF in web pages since it could not support hyperlinks. The PDF was therefore used mainly for desktop publishing. When Adobe Systems began distributing it with Adobe Acrobat (Reader), the PDF file format became standard for publishing documents on the web. To date, eight versions of the PDF have been released with the Adobe Acrobat package.