Tutorials - Adobe® Reader® (page 1 of 4)

Adobe Reader is free software that can view and print electronic documents created from applications like Adobe Acrobat®, Microsoft® Office, and others. These documents are available as Adobe PDF (Portable Document Format) — a file format that preserves the content and layout of the original document. Faculty and staff create Adobe PDF documents to distribute information in a consistent manner, so that the user does not have to buy the original software used to create the original document in order to view it.

The information in this tutorial is based upon the current Sacramento State standard, Adobe Reader 6. Older versions of Adobe Reader, called Adobe Acrobat Reader, may look slightly different, but the same general concepts apply.

PDF Documents from Your Hard Drive or Other Disk

You can open a PDF document that is saved on your computer's hard drive (or other disk) by locating the file in Windows Explorer (PC) or Finder (Mac); then double-clicking the name of the file. This will open the Adobe Reader application and display the file.

PDF Documents from the Web

When you click a link to a PDF document on a Web page from your browser, one of three things usually happen:

1. The PDF document opens in your Web browser if you have Adobe Reader configured as a "plug-in," or opens in its own window if you have Adobe Reader configured as a "helper application." This option is configured within Adobe Reader 6, from Edit > Preferences > Internet (PC), or Adobe Reader > Preferences > Internet (Macintosh).
    
2. If your Web browser is not configured to open PDF documents, it may:
   1. Display a dialog box with an option to save the document to your hard drive; where you can open it later with Adobe Reader.
   2. Automatically download the document to your computer's desktop and preview it (for example, Internet Explorer on the Macintosh). You can also open it later with Adobe Reader.
       
3. If you do not have Adobe Reader installed, your browser cannot display the document. Depending upon your browser, it may display an error message stating that it could not load the plug-in (i.e. Netscape Navigator) or display an image icon on the page without displaying the document (i.e. Internet Explorer).