After reading my recent article on the myriad ways available for creating PDF files, Making PDFs:  A Modern Primer, reader Pat P. asks:

1. I am not quite understanding the difference between—PDF and Distiller. Are they the same thing? Or is distiller a whole different item?

2. And can I put an item from InDesign to a PDF?

3. Then I've heard that you can not correct/adjust anything once it's in PDF form. True?

Turn on my bulb!

Good questions, Pat! Here are some good answers:

1. PDF is the file format itself—a something.pdf file—while Distiller is the application and engine that makes PDF files. Distiller is a part of the Adobe Acrobat (Standard or Professional) application.

2. InDesign can export PDFs directly, with or without Distiller installed. From InDesign’s File menu choose Export, then, in the file type dropdown box choose “Adobe PDF”.

3. It used to be like that, yes. However with Acrobat versions 3-5, you could perform very limited text and object editing. In Acrobat Professional versions 6 and 7 (7 is the current), you can correct or adjust a whole lot more, including changing colors from RGB to CMYK, adding new objects, more advanced text edits, and much, much more.

Despite all the things you can edit or correct inside a PDF with Acrobat Professional, Acrobat is not a layout or design application. Major changes need to be made in their “source program,” the application that created the original file and printed, saved, or exported the PDF (e.g. InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Quark, etc.).

The Design Weblog here. We, or our readers, will try to answer.