以下是引用newdos在2012-9-5 14:24:51的发言：
pdf并不是标准，只不过很多win用户在用罢了，而且制作pdf本身就是收费的软件，
个人不大喜欢，制作出来的数据文档太大了，50MB以内的还可以接受，有很多电子书格式并不比pdf差。
微软并没有公开支持它，微软喜欢用chm和后续的document explorer做为电子书。
Portable Document Format (PDF) is a file format used to represent documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems.[2] Each PDF file encapsulates a complete description of a fixed-layout flat document, including the text, fonts, graphics, and other information needed to display it. In 1991, Adobe Systems co-founder John Warnock outlined a system called "Camelot"[3] that evolved into PDF.
While Adobe Systems made the PDF specification available free of charge in 1993, PDF remained a proprietary format, controlled by Adobe, until it was officially released as an open standard on July 1, 2008, and published by the International Organization for Standardization as ISO 32000-1:2008.[1][4] In 2008, Adobe published a Public Patent License to ISO 32000-1 granting royalty-free rights for all patents owned by Adobe that are necessary to make, use, sell and distribute PDF compliant implementations.[5]
以上来自维基百科
until it was officially released as an open standard on July 1, 2008, and published by the International Organization for Standardization as ISO 32000-1:2008.
自从2008年后 已经变成一个标准了 而且很多国际组织的文档就是pdf的 科研方面更不用说了
至于pdf制作软件 adobe的可能收费 但我知道PDFCreator是不收费的 不过貌似只有windows下有 而且高版本对中文的支持变差了
