Option 1: Create an Adobe Acrobat PDF version of the report

How To

Creating an Adobe Acrobat PDF version of the report is easy, but it does require additional software. The Adobe Acrobat Reader, needed to read PDF files, is free and you can download it from the Adobe site. The software to write PDF files, Adobe Acrobat, costs less than $100. You can download the free Adobe Acrobat Reader and read more about Acrobat at the Adobe Web site.

To create a PDF version of the report:

1. If you do not already have the Adobe Acrobat software, purchase the software and install it on your computer. You may need to restart your computer after the installation.
2. After the software is installed, open the report in Microsoft Word or whatever application you used to create the report.
3. Choose File and Create Adobe PDF. If the Create PDF command is not available on the File menu, choose Print and select Acrobat PDFWriter as the Printer.
4. Select a name and location for the PDF file.
5. It should take less than a minute to create the PDF file.
6. Upload the PDF file to your Web server and create a link to it like any other Web page. Note however that the document name will end in .pdf not .html.

Advantages

• Fast and easy; takes less than 5 minutes if you already have the Adobe Acrobat software
• Easy for users to print paper copy of the report if needed
• Smaller file size for faster download

Disadvantages

• Requires additional software to produce PDF file; costs $60 - $80
• Users must have Adobe Acrobat Reader software to view/print report; this is not a huge disadvantage because the reader is free to download and many users already have the Acrobat Reader installed
• Report is not as easily indexed via all search engines (but google does index PDF documents).
• Report is not as accessible to visually impaired users as an HTML version might be (see Acrobat Accessibility at Adobe's Web site for additional information about making PDF documents accessible)