PDF Files in a Paperless Office

A paperless office is a new concept, a new philosophy that has emerged with technological advancement. It envisions an office with no papers, only digital documents in digital files. No work in any office will be done on paper, everything by everyone will be done on computers. Besides getting rid of a lot of clutter and saving space, an added benefit of a paperless office would be a reduction in environmental impact - since no trees will be cut to make paper!

In such an environment, a good digital format is needed to save all the documents in. This is where PDF comes in. It is the best format that can be used in a paperless office. The reasons for this are many:

PDF files are non-proprietary. In other words, they are free and easily available. All it requires is Acrobat Reader which is easily available for free. (We should admit that other Adobe solutions are not so available, but there are many other PDF converters in the marketr that are far cheaper). Another benefit of saving documents in the PDF format is that the file cannot be altered. Office files can also be saved in Word or Excel, but the main disadvantage here is that they are easily changeable. Anyone can alter their contents, so it’s not a really good to index or archive office file in. The unalterable feature of PDF makes it an ideal office format.

Another feature of PDF which makes it a good format to use in a paperless office is its ability to save all kinds of formats in it – Word, Excel, or just about any other format. Its size is also an asset. PDF files are considerably smaller than other formats, thus saving hardware space, as well as making it easier to send them over the internet. Sending files in PDF as opposed to Word or Excel has another great benefit. Metadata (hidden file information such as time spent, person/persons who worked on the file, comments added or deleted, revision dates, and so on) is completely removed, whereas other formats retain them.

A major feature of PDF which must not be forgotten is its ability to be used on any system and all platforms with no exceptions. Therefore, it won’t be wrong to say that a paperless office is incomplete without PDF files.

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