A little background

First released in 1993, Acrobat and PDF documents didn’t really gain wide acceptance as a file format for print service providers until around 1999. That’s when a robust set of print production features was added to the PDF document format.

Suddenly print service providers had a way to print a document without worrying about missing elements or text reflowing. Instead of asking for the native application files, they began asking for PDF documents. And the rest is the success of PDF.