PDF (Portable Document Format) is a file format developed by Adobe in the 1990s for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. It preserves the layout, fonts, images, and other elements of a document exactly as intended, making it ideal for sharing and printing. PDF files can contain text, graphics, hyperlinks, forms, and multimedia, and are widely used for documents like reports, forms, ebooks, and manuals.
Developers should learn PDF for handling document generation, manipulation, and processing in applications, such as creating invoices, reports, or forms programmatically. It's essential in industries like finance, legal, and publishing where document integrity and consistency are critical. Understanding PDF libraries and tools enables developers to extract data, merge files, add digital signatures, or convert documents to other formats.