And Adobe, with more than 500 million copies of the software in circulation, hopes to keep it that way.
The company's Acrobat software turns any document into a PDF (Portable Document Format) file, which can be read or printed from any device with the original formatting intact and all text secure from revision.
Free Acrobat Reader software allows PC owners to view and print PDF documents. Now, Adobe plans to expand the Portable Document Format behind Acrobat Reader into a multipurpose business tool over the coming months.
At the same time, however, Microsoft is moving ahead with plans for software that could nibble at the edge of Adobe's market.
Earlier this year, Microsoft announced plans for XDocs, an extension of its Office software intended to allow workers to easily create basic online forms.
Initially hailed as a potential PDF killer, it has lost much of its luster among analysts. They now mostly see XDocs as potential competition for only part of Adobe's business.
In addition, Microsoft gave a hint of what shape other plans might take at the launch event last month for tablet PC software. Chairman Bill Gates said future tablet PC applications would include ePeriodicals, an XML (Extensible Markup Language)-based extension of its Reader software that would let publishers create slickly formatted electronic versions of magazines. No release date was given for ePeriodicals.
Analysts said Microsoft's move onto Adobe's turf is overdue. "I'm surprised Microsoft has let Adobe own this space as long as they have," said Paul DeGroot, lead analyst for research firm Directions on Microsoft.
"Something like 80 percent of the world's business documents are created in Microsoft's .doc format. But when people need to exchange documents, there's no compact, easy-to-download, secure way to exchange them and preserve all the fonts and formatting and layout. The requirement for this kind of format was obvious to Adobe 10 years ago, and they capitalised on it."
Microsoft representatives declined to comment for this story.
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