PDF (vector — Portable Document Format)

PDF (ISO 32000) is the format that opens everywhere: in a browser, on a phone, in any operating system, with nothing to install. The vector variant stores the map not as a picture but as geometry: road lines, building outlines and labels stay independent objects.

Two practical consequences follow. The map can be enlarged without losing crispness — in print the lines stay thin and even on any sheet size, from A4 to a poster. And it can be edited: the file opens in Illustrator, Inkscape or CorelDRAW as ordinary vector graphics, where objects can be recoloured and moved.

The file is assembled through the QGIS print layout in vector mode: labels stay text with embedded fonts — they show up in a document search and can be selected, not just looked at. The sheet size is chosen at export time (A4-A0) or picked automatically from the area of the region.

Vector PDF has a limit: the more objects there are, the heavier the file and the longer it takes to open — a map of a whole region can noticeably lag in a browser viewer. For such cases there is raster PDF: it opens instantly regardless of how dense the development is, but does not scale without losing crispness.