Create PDFs for free (or cheap) from your Office documents

Create PDFs for free (or cheap) from your Office documents

Most people I know outside the corporate world have experience with PDFs -- Adobe's Portable Document Format files -- as users or consumers of the technology. They can read PDFs, but aren't sure how to create them.

Fortunately, there isn't any big secret or mystery to PDFs. But before I tell you how to create your own on the cheap, let me explain why there's even a need for this file format.

Let's say you create a nice looking, highly formatted document, like a newsletter, announcement or flyer. You put graphics in certain places and use fonts that you bought or downloaded from somewhere. If you only want to print the document yourself and distribute it on paper, there's no problem. But what if you want to distribute it electronically, maybe by e-mail or putting it on the Web?

• If you created the document in Word, you can distribute the Word document, but what if the people viewing the document don't have your fonts? They'll see other fonts substituted, and your formatting work goes down the drain.
• If you created the document in PowerPoint or Publisher, or non-Microsoft applications, you not only risk the font substitution problem, but not everyone has PowerPoint installed and even fewer have Publisher installed. And who wants to read a document in Publisher, anyway? And yes, there are even a few computers that don't have Word installed on them.

That's where PDFs come in. A PDF is like a snapshot of your document. It includes fonts, layout, graphics and everything else you put in your document. Anyone can read PDFs using Adobe Reader (the software formerly known as Adobe Acrobat), available for free at Adobe's Web site. So what you intend people to see is exactly what they see -- no guessing required. This is also important for bringing documents electronically to a print shop for digital or offset printing, since the print shop might not have the application you used to create the document.

The problem is that while Adobe Reader is free, it's just that: a reader designed to display PDFs, but not create or edit them. To create PDFs, you need separate software to do the conversion. Almost all PDF conversion software will work with your "regular" software when you print. That is, to convert a document to PDF, select File/Print (Ctrl + P), then choose the PDF converter as though it's a printer. Instead of printing, the converter will create a PDF.

Typically, people create PDFs using Adobe Acrobat. Once a regular document has been distilled (i.e. converted) to PDF, Acrobat lets you edit it in many ways, such as modifying font embedding, making minor text changes, inserting or editing hyperlinks, rearranging pages, cropping, renumbering pages, adding digital signatures and security, creating automated reading orders, inserting bookmarks and much more. You can't beat it for the number and flexibility of features.

If you have $300 to $400 to spare for the standard or professional version (or $1200 for the whole Adobe Creative Suite), then go for it. But if your budget is a little tighter, there are many third-party and shareware options available. Here are a few, all of which offer free trials:

For $30 or $50 (standard and pro version), you can buy the Adolix PDF Converter (www.adolix.com). It will do a decent job of converting documents to PDF and compressing them, too. It has basic post-conversion editing features, such as open/modify security, rearranging pages and merging documents.

Win2PDF (www.win2pdf.com) will convert documents for $35 or $69 (also for standard and pro versions), but its post-production editing is limited. You can set passwords and change document titles, but not much else.

While most PDF converters still require Adobe Reader to view or print PDFs, pdfFactory and pdfFactory Pro (www.pdffactory.com) let you preview and print directly from the application. The Pro version costs $100, but you'll also want the FinePrint utility for better editing. Spring for the extra ten bucks and get them as a $110 package.

On price alone, it's hard to beat pdf995 and pdfEdit995 (www.pdf995.com), from a company called Software995. Guess how much they charge for their products? As the product names imply, you'll need one program to do the conversion and another to edit. They don't have many options, but their output is good. If you only need quick-and-dirty conversion, it's hard to argue with twenty bucks.

Actually, there is one argument with twenty bucks: it's called "free"...but there's a big catch. If you need to create PDFs for the sole purpose of sending documents to your local Staples for their quick print service, download their EasyPrint software from www.staples.com/easyprint. It offers zero editing capability and requires Adobe Reader to view and print. The catch is that every page gets a Staples copyright notice running up the right side. When you send the document to Staples, they remove the watermark.

Much of this discussion may be moot before long. Microsoft plans on building PDF conversion into Office 2007, release date still unknown. As they say in sports, "just wait until next year!"