Portable Document Format
PDF (Portable Document Format) is a file format developed by Adobe in 1993 to present documents — including text formatting and images — independently of application software, hardware, and operating systems. It became an open standard (ISO 32000) in 2008. PDFs preserve page layout exactly, which makes them ideal for contracts, reports, forms, and any document where appearance must remain consistent across devices.
| File extensions | |
| MIME type | application/pdf |
| Developer | Adobe Systems |
| First released | 1993 |
| Category | Documents |
| Open standard | Yes |
What opens PDF files
- Adobe Acrobat / Acrobat Reader
- Preview (macOS)
- All modern web browsers
- Microsoft Edge
- Foxit Reader
Common conversions
PDF to Word
Convert PDF documents into editable Word files.
PDF to Excel
Extract tables from PDFs into editable Excel spreadsheets.
PDF to PowerPoint
Convert PDFs into editable PowerPoint presentations.
PDF to Images
Extract each page of a PDF as an image file.
PDF to PNG
Extract each PDF page as a PNG image.
Merge PDFs
Combine multiple PDF files into one document.
Sign PDF
Add a digital signature to a PDF file.
Fill PDF Form
Edit text and fill empty fields in a PDF form.
Extract Pages from PDF
Split a PDF and extract only the pages you need.
Browse File Formats
Reference details for 53 file formats — extensions, MIME types, what opens each one, and how they convert.
7Z Archives ABW Documents AI Images AVIF Images AZW3 E-books BMP Images CSS Other CSV Spreadsheets DjVu E-books DOC Documents DOCX Documents EPS Images EPUB E-books FB2 E-books GIF Images GZ Archives HEIC Images HTML Documents ICO Images ISO Archives JPG Images JSON Other Keynote Presentations Markdown Documents MOBI E-books Numbers Spreadsheets ODP Presentations ODS Spreadsheets ODT Documents OTF Other Pages Documents PDF Documents PNG Images PPT Presentations PPTX Presentations PSD Images RAR Archives RAW Images RTF Documents SVG Images TAR Archives TeX / LaTeX Documents TIFF Images TSV Spreadsheets TTF Other TXT Documents WebP Images WOFF / WOFF2 Other WPD Documents XLS Spreadsheets XLSX Spreadsheets XML Documents ZIP Archives