A few weeks ago, Adobe announced that it would be relinquishing control of its PDF format to an outside body, and in doing so probably did more to ensure the long term future of Adobe Acrobat than any other single act. Nobody likes proprietary formats, and despite the almost universal acceptance of PDF files, and the multitude of software applications that utilise it, the PDF file structure was still under the control of a single company.

This is one of the main reasons PageFour files are saved as RTF, rather than a unique format of my own devising. When the very first beta was released, a proprietary format was used. Feedback on this point from early beta testers was negative, as no one wanted to be tied forever to a single piece of software, or to have their months or years of work exist in files that could only be read by one program. There was also the fear, as with any new product, that the company responsible could fail, or the product be abandoned due to poor sales.

Similar arguments were made against the use of any kind of database by PageFour.

By saving the files as RTF, these problems were bypassed, as Rich Text Files can be read by virtually ALL word processors. There was therefore no reliance on PageFour, or on the timely answering of support emails from a small company, should a problem occur - PageFour files could simply be opened and edited in MS Word, Open Office, or some other program.

Moving back to PDFs. Though PageFour itself does not contain any built in PDF capabilities, it is possible to use other PDF software with the product, and there is a multitude to choose from, many of them free.

Some time ago, I recommended PDFCreator, and I still stand by it as the simplest free product to incorporate a PDF writing feature into PageFour. It installs itself as a printer driver, which means that to convert a Page to PDF, you simply set PDFCreator as the Default Printer from the Print menu, and print the page.

Those of you with only a single printer linked to your PC will never have come across the Set Default Printer option on the Print menu, as it only becomes visible when two or more print devices have been installed. When PageFour is opened, the default printer is ALWAYS set to the Windows default, but this can be changed by simply selecting another printer or print device from the list. This changes the default only for PageFour, and only for the current session. Other programs will happily carry on using the Windows default.

If you do choose to install PDFCreator, you will need to close PageFour and reopen it for the changes to take effect. A point worth mentioning, is that the installation of PDFCreator also attempts to install an Internet Explorer toolbar - the reason for which escapes me. This can be prevented by unclicking the appropriate option on the final page of the installation wizard.

There are other, more sophisticated PDF programs out there, many of which offer far more options, such as merging multiple pages into a single PDF document - ideal for novels. These should be tested thoroughly - especially if you plan to hand over money - as not all are as capable of handling multiple pages and merges as they suggest.