Category: Tech Writer
There are so many ways to create a PDF today that Adobe Acrobat and Adobe products no longer have monopoly over the file format. XSL-FO, Microsoft Office, Google Chrome and directly from any Linux application are only some of the more popular ways of producing a PDF from a document or project.
If you need to identify what application produced the PDF (for example to check the design or imitate the formatting) you can use the free Adobe Reader to check the PDF properties. Adobe Reader has lost some of its gloss over the years due to security problems and lack of features compared to other open source or freeware offerings, but it can still be found installed in most enterprise Windows machines with a dated version available for Linux (Adobe Reader 9).
To check the PDF producer in Acrobat Reader:
1. Open the PDF in Adobe Reader.
2. Click File then Properties.
3. On the Description tab, the Application and PDF Producer items indicate which applications/utilities were involved in creating the PDF.
Unfortunately, complete PDF properties are only available on desktop versions of Adobe Reader and currently can't be viewed from the iOS app release.
Linux and KDE users can check the PDF producer of a document using the excellent document viewer Okular.
To check the PDF producer in Okular:
1. Open the PDF in Okular.
2. Click File then Properties.
3. On the Properties tab, the Creator and Producer items indicate which applications were used to create the PDF.
Checking which PDF engine was used to create a PDF is a great way to learn about which industry standard applications are popular with today's software and hardware manufacturers. The Sony DOStudio manual documentation, for example, was exported from MadCap Flare while AMD's developer guides use an earlier version of Adobe FrameMaker. Lenovo, on the other hand, alternately uses Adobe InDesign CS3 and XPP XML Publishing depending on their product line.
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