If you use the internet to any degree, or work at a company that has standardized documents, then you have used Adobe Acrobat or the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Acrobat files, commonly known as .pdf files, are becoming a standard that usually trumps Word, mainly because you can create the .pdf file, and anyone in the world can see it because the Reader is free.
I love Adobe, I really do (I am getting into Photoshop now). But the Adobe Reader is one bloated piece of software. It commonly occupies 20-30mb of RAM while running, not to mention the long load times, especially if you are trying to open a pdf through your web browser.
But if the internet has taught us anything, it's this: Give a nerd bloated and slow software, and he will get with other nerds, do their nerdy-thing, and make a new program that's less bloated and faster. The Nerds of the world have done just that for .pdf files.
The first thing is the .pdf reader, Foxit Reader. This is your replacement for Adobe Reader. It loads literally twice as fast as Adobe did on my home computer and my work computer. What's better, Foxit Reader only used 8mb of RAM-- less than half of what Adobe uses. So, if you're a multitasking person when you're on the computer, you will have better performance because more RAM is free to be used elsewhere.
Next week, we'll talk about a free program to make .pdf files yourself.
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