Now bear with me here and please remember that I am not good at this Computer thingy. Very occasionally when I go to a link or another website I find that it is "taken over" by Adobe. This seems to clog up my computer and I cannot seem to get rid of it. Is there any way of knowing whether you are going into Adobe, and once you are locked in, is there anyway of getting out quickly?
Thankyou most kindly and ingraciatingly for your patience

I use Adobe quite a lot, but find that if I am in something I don't want, hiting the "back" button on my pc is the quickest exit.

I'm not sure what you mean Jennifer, so I may be on the wrong track, in which case apologies. Some links on the net will be to pdf files/documents and when you click on them they'll try to download the files onto your desktop. If you don't have the 'reader' which you can get from the adobe website your computer will probably try to go there to get it, so you can read these files.

You can either try to avoid anything that says pdf/adobe/acrobat download, or go to [link] and download the reader so you can now read the files. It is free and quite useful.
Loads of files are on the net in this form..

I hope this makes sense. If not go to the link I've given you and it'll probably explain it better..

I think Jen is right-if you don't have an adobe acrobat reader-this reads large files that you can't otherwise access-then if you click on a pdf file to open it the computer takes you to where you can download a reader for free-but this takes time to install on your pc so it may be at this point you feel your pc is stuck-wait for it to download-you may be given some prompts onscreen-easy to follow. When it's done you should get an adobe icon on your desktop-you don't have to do anything with it but if you find something on the web in pdf format your pc will automatically open it for you so you can read it-magic-do take the time to download one!

Hi Jennifer,

What the others have said about Adobe PDF files is the likely cause. If your connection to the internet is slow and it takes a long time to save things like the adobe acrobat reader program that Jen and Sue have mentioned, you could buy a computer magazine instead.

One such as PC Answers or Personal Computer World may be good ones to look at. Most of those magazines will usually have a disk that will contain all kinds of files and programs - Adobe Acrobat for reading pdf files is one of them. That way you don't have to wait for long downloads which slow your computer. You can just install it from the disk (the magazine will guide you through that).

If you already have this installed, pdf files can still be a pain because some take ages to download and can slow your computer. To avoid this, before you click on a link, place the mouse cursor over the link itself, but don't click yet. Have a look at the link information that appears at the bottom of the screen. If it ends with .pdf - don't click on it.

If that made no sense, let me know I'll try to explain it better.

Thank you very much all of you for your time. Do I just avoid pdf then? My computer is relatively new, and we are on Broadband so is fast enough, (and I.m probably talking rubbish here) does the pdf appear in the search bar at the top?
We did have teacher training days on computers in school but they were total rubbish, left more than one teacher in tears at their ineptitude, and lack of skills. Doesn't do much for the confidence.
Alysha the last paragraph of yours sounds sense I think I'll stick to that. Thanks again.

Hi jennifer there isnt a need to not use the adobe reader for site uploads of info a lot of price list etc on online shops are done this way so its easy for the site owner to access and change information.
Its only a format for putting documents and information on the web.
So its slow cos you havnt added it to your pc. once inplace as already mentioned you wont have anything to worry about. it just looks scary thats all.

PDF is just a shortcut term used for certain types of document a type of format used, there are many others but nothing to worry about and you wont see the words until you open it up or right click on the item.
i hope this clarifies a bit for you. if your not sure about wanting adobe acrobat then ask around and see if someone else has it on their computer and see what it is and does. Then you will have a better idea of why its used.

dont worry about sounding daft when i first started on on puters i didnt know what was meant by right click, wont tell you what i thought it was but it didnt involve a mouse.
cheers
H
x

pdf files can be slow to download and on older systems, they can make the computer slow. Small ones with price lists would be fast but I've had some in the past that were 15 pages (long documents) and they can be terribly slow. I have broadband and a fast computer and with those much larger pdf files, it can take ages for them to download. But as Relishmama said, most pdf files should be quick.

I would say that as you are seeing Adobe when you click on those links, you do already have the Acrobat reader installed. If not, you wouldn't see the Adobe program loading. If it isn't on your computer, you'll usually be prompted with a box asking you which program to open the file with.

If you want to avoid them, just look for that .pdf ending as said. Good luck!