I have the 2008 NEC on a single PDF file. Is this any different than what comes on the CD?
Quite a bit.
The software that the NEC CD runs on is a lot more powerful than plain old free Adobe Acrobat.
You can bookmark your own Articles, Sections, etc.
Click on "Go To" and you go there.
You can highlight (in various colors) whatever you want:
The Search function does more than let you go from one 'hit' to the next. It shows you where all the hits are, and you can quickly narrow down what you're looking for. For instance, let's say you're trying to find the language of 406.6, but cannot recall where exactly it is.
So you type in "Attachment plugs" into the search prompt, and you see this:
Now you either use Next Hit or Previous Hit to jump from one hit to the next (or previous), or you can scan down the left side and see where every instance that phrase is located at, while the first is displayed and highlighted for you. You can open and close your choices on the left, just like you would files in a directory. Hmmmm Section 406 looks good........ Bingo!
Whenever a reference is made to another Article, Section, etc. is displayed, it is a link to that Article or Section that allows you to go right to it. When you're done, you can 'Link Back" to where you started. This allows you to hop all over the book, going forward and backwards without endless scrolling.
Another nice feature: When you look at a table in the pdf form, when you scroll down, the headers disapper off the top of the screen. Not so with the genuine version. As you scroll down, the headers stop at the top of the screen and stay there until you scroll past the bottom of the table.