PDF: An Overview For Legal Professionals

By Law Vendors staff

PDF has become a mainstay of the legal industry, and its use is likely to continue to grow. So, like it or not, every legal professional needs to know what PDF is and how to use it.

What Is PDF?

PDF (Portable Document Format) is a type of digital document that was invented in 1993 by Adobe. Though it was slow to catch on initially, PDF is now a standard of the Internet, and there are several reasons it's useful in the legal field:

Security - if you send someone a Microsoft Word or WordPerfect document, it can easily be edited or changed. But by converting that same document to PDF, you preserve the original content.

Mobility - because a document converted to PDF is relatively small in size and since virtually everyone with a computer has the ability to view PDF documents, PDFs are ideal for transmitting by e-filing, emailing, or over the Internet.

Ease of use - current versions of word-processing software can convert a document to PDF in a matter of seconds. Older versions can convert to PDF with the addition of free, downloadable programs like CutePDF. If you don't have the software necessary for viewing PDFs, don't worry - it's free.

Uses For The Legal Industry

There are three primary uses of PDF in the legal field:

E-filing - PDF is the designated format for documents to be electronically filed with courts. All U.S. federal district courts require documents be e-filed, and the number of Texas district and county courts using e-filing is growing.

Archived documents - more and more articles and books are being loaded onto the Internet in PDF format, making them readily accessible for research.

Interactive forms - a growing number of online forms use PDF, and many allow the user to fill out the form online. For example, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas has an interactive PDF form for attorney registration. Instead of printing it and filling it out by hand, you can type in information and print out the completed form. Most IRS forms are available online in PDF format, and many are interactive.

How To View A PDF Document

Chances are excellent that you already have software to view and create PDF documents on your computer.

PDF documents can be viewed with Adobe Reader. To view a PDF document, simply open the document or Internet link as you would any other. A PDF document downloaded from the Internet or received via email can also be saved to your computer.

How To Create A PDF Document

There are two ways of creating PDFs with equipment that is already found in almost every office: word-processing software and scanners. (There is software specifically for creating PDFs, but why buy and learn new software when you already have the tools you need?)

A document created in Word or WordPerfect can quickly be converted to PDF, either by the software itself (recent versions have the ability to convert documents to PDF) or with free downloadable programs like CutePDF. If you don't want to spend money on a new version of Word or WordPerfect, consider OpenOffice the free, open-source office software suite. OpenOffice can create word-processing documents and converts them to PDF.

Most scanners can save a document as a PDF, which is extremely useful if you have exhibits to attach to pleadings for e-filing or to email to another party.

However, scanning is not the best choice for documents you have created. A scanner-created PDF is nothing more than a photo of a document, and these files are large and they are not searchable. Converted documents are searchable, allowing the viewer to select and copy text and paste it into a word-processing document - very handy for drafting pleadings.

Further, some federal courts require e-filed documents to be searchable. Expect that trend to continue, so you need to be able to do this.