Adobe created the Acrobat PDF format and is headquartered in San Jose, California.
Adobe was founded in December 1982 by John Warnock and Charles Geschke, former Xerox PARC researchers. Its first major product was PostScript, a page-description language that became important in desktop publishing and laser printing. Adobe later developed Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, and other creative tools that became industry standards.
Adobe introduced the Portable Document Format, or PDF, in the early 1990s as part of its Acrobat product family. PDF was designed to preserve a document’s appearance across different computers, operating systems, and printers. The format became an ISO standard in 2008, although Adobe continued to develop Acrobat and related document services.
Adobe is sometimes identified only with creative software, but its business also includes digital documents, marketing technology, analytics, and cloud subscriptions. The company changed its name from Adobe Systems Incorporated to Adobe Inc. in 2018. Its recurring Creative Cloud revenue has supported its position among highly valued software companies.