PDF vs Acrobat and Distiller

Many people confuse the Adobe Systems Incorporated products, such as Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Distiller that use the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF), with the PDF file format specification itself. They are two different things. Both Acrobat and Distiller are based on the PDF file format specification and read or create many different types of PDF files whose features depend on the particular settings used. The Adobe Portable Document Format itself is separately documented, requires no license or fees, and may be used by anyone. The PDF specification may be found at http://partners.adobe.com/asn/