Adobe's PDF (or Portable Document Format) has become an unofficial worldwide standard for electronic document distribution as a result of the company distributing its Acrobat Reader software free of charge. More than 300 million copies have been distributed.
Its support of digital signatures could help an industry that has taken longer than many expected to find a market. Where previously companies using Adobe software could print out PDF-formatted documents, sign them and fax or post them to the recipients, the new package will allow them to fill out and sign such documents digitally, keeping the whole process on-line.
More information about the package is available from:
www.adobe.com/products/server/documentserver/main.html