I work for a university and we have access to the full Adobe suite so software isn't an issue (but I'm not all that familiar with using it). I'm working with a college who needs to rebuild a PDF using a report builder but there aren't any specifications on how to emulate the PDF. How could I provide him with some valuable information on spacing and font types and that sort of thing.
I think I get what you're going for here...
If you're trying to edit PDFs, Adobe Illustrator or Acrobat are good tools, although they do different things: Illustrator is a graphic design program, and Acrobat is a business document toolkit.
If you're trying to emulate an existing PDF and need to extract font sizes, typefaces, spacing and such, your task might be as simple as opening the PDF in Adobe Illustrator (PDF is essentially Illustrator's native file format), clicking on the text you want to emulate, and reading the values Illustrator presents to you (Window >> Type >> Character / Paragraph).
Using the Control toolbar (Window >> Control) will make it easier to manipulate and see values. Also, turn on the Rulers (Control-R), or use the Measure tool, if you need to measure arbitrary space in the document.