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- tekrat, on 10/12/2007, -2/+23Here's my list of free PDF creators for Windows:
- GhostScript + RedMon (Pain to setup and change setting but the fastest setup I've ever done)
- PDF995 (Nagware, but has some very nice add-ons)
- PrimoPDF (My personal fav. Fast and easy to use. Newer versions have more professional options)
- OpenOffice (My only two gripes are that converting from Word can goof up some formating and loose the original look, and its a really big install to JUST create PDF's. Otherwise a nice program.)
- CutePDF (I think it still Nagware but I'm not sure)
- PDF Online - Upload a document, have it emailed directly to you. Nice if you're not doing sensetive documents.
- createpdf.adobe.com - Same as PDF Online only its directly from Adobe and is in free trial format. So you will have to eventually pay.
- PDF4Free - Tagware, annoying banner on every PDF
- Use Postscript Printer Drivers - Install the drivers for a postscript print and have it print to a file and then convert it to PDF through Ghostscript
- WinPDF - Completely new to me
- Text To PDF Converter - Convert text files and some DOS formats to PDF, limited usability
- AcroPDF 1.0 - Heard about it but never used it. V2 and now shareware so you have to pay or search fro version 1.
- go2pdf - Small, fast, free, but feature sparse from the last time I tried it.
- PDFCreator (SourceForge) - GPL PDF print drivers - Powerful but clunky - ani-pockdotnet, on 10/12/2007, -7/+26Mac users: In Any document with a "Print" menu, do the following:
1. File > Print...
2. Click "PDF >" button.
3. "Save as PDF..."
Done!
The following options are also aviable in Mac OS X's PDF button:
- Compress PDF
- Encrypt PDF
- Mail PDF
- Save as PDF-X - winnch, on 10/12/2007, -10/+29My list of PDF creators:
- Mac OS X. Built in at the system level. - GreatDrok, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14I recently got so sick of my mum complaining that her windows laptop had stopped working again and having to fix it that I bought her a MacBook. I handed it to her, showed her how to turn it on and then just let her get on with it using a non-admin account as I had already installed all the software she needed including my old copy of Office X. Mostly she was doing OK although not really exploring much (she was shocked to discover what could be done with Spotlight once I tolder he about it) but the best revelation was when she called to say she was so excited that she could now create PDFs by using neooffice as she had bought a Windows PDF converter and of course couldn't use it which had bummed her out. When I pointed out that everything in OS X that can print can create PDFs she was amazed. It is becoming very common for her to call and just say how much she regrets not getting a Mac sooner.
One thing that strikes me about switchers is that they complain about all the things that they can't do the same way on a Mac as they did on Windows without really understanding that often the way you do things on Windows is much too hard (PDFs are a very good example of this). It is only when you start using the unique features of OS X that you realise how much more efficient you can be. As a long time UNIX user I was never that keen on old pre OS X Macs but that all changed 6 years ago and with the advent of Intel based Macs I can't think of any machine I would rather have. - astrosmash, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14I never could have understood just how valuable something like PDF could be, both at the application level and API level, until I started using OS X.
These days everything I create is "printed" to PDF, and most everything I consume is either PDF or converted to PDF. Plus, as a student, the ability to universally cut, paste, and annotate PDF documents has become fundamental to daily activities, whether its pasting a PDF snippet from Preview.app to OmniOutliner.app, pasting a diagram from OmniGraffle.app to Pages.app, or pasting a math formula from Grapher.app to TextEdit.app. Not to mention the added bonus of manipulating PDF documents using Python scripting.
The universal PDF support was truly one of the unexpected hidden gems of my journey into OS X. It's too bad Adobe software is of such poor quality, which must be where PDF gets its bad name from. When implemented correctly, PDF is indispensable. - zephc, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14"hear, hear!" to winnch
File > Print > Save As PDF - abid786, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14i think you wasted more time by calculating how much time you wasted
- astrosmash, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9It's too bad OpenOffice can't accept PDF snippets from the clipboard.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7And for print designers: http://www.scribus.net/
- antiNeo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6The article didn't even mention Scribus. Scribus is awesome if you really want control over your document's design and content, far more robust than any PDF print driver or OO.O's PDF exporter. I use it all the time for making flyers for my LUG. It also works on OSX and Windows (with native widgets thanks to qt).
- Forse42, on 10/12/2007, -5/+11OpenOffice has been out for a while, how is this news?
- mv36, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6PDFCreator at http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/ is the only thing you need for Windows to make PDF.
Installs a printer (like cups-pdf) so you can print from any app and it makes a PDF. - vistic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5LaTeX anyone?
- Kwipper, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Wow. I really have to thank one person. Adobe. If it wasn't for Adobe's crappy effort in making decent PDF reading/writing software that requires a hefty amount of system resources, I don't think that we would even have the free products that do better than Adobe's commercial products!
Thank you Adobe. If it weren't for you, we wouldn't be inspired to make a better PDF reader than you ever could! - notnoisy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3For Office 2007 you have "2007 Microsoft Office Add-in: Microsoft Save as PDF or XPS":
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=4d951911-3e7e-4ae6-b059-a2e79ed87041&DisplayLang=en - 35chililights, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3free pdf editing (extract, merge, rotate) would have been news. what was presented...
not so much. - scooter17, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I would suggest using Open Office (free, of course), which allows you to export any text document including pictures and other stuff, to a PDF.
- rossjp, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3PrimoPDF is the best. Easy to install, a breeze to use. The best free PDF maker there is.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3dag... i thought we were going to get a comprehensive listing of pdflib alternatives... I guess I was wrong.
- natch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Google Documents saves as PDF. No need to install software.
- srg13, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I use PDFCreator whenever I have to use Windows. It's pretty good, and very easy to use. But I do agree it's a little clunky, but hey, it works...
- sumadartson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Pdflatex to be precise. The first thing I looked for in the article... and it wasn't there. Tssk...
- slythfox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Portable Scribus:
http://www.quate.net/newsnet/read.php?31
Much like Adobe Pagemaker, but free. And this version is the portable, non install version, and includes Ghostscript. - Atomic1fire, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Open Office
you can open many types of word files with it and it has an export pdf button
and its free (if your allready using microsoft office then dont download oo just get Microsoft Save as PDF or XPS and that should work just fine) - wooptoo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1PDF is an open format; anyone can write software that creates/reads PDFs. I doubt that Microsoft will make their XPS an open format. Btw, Adobe is working on a new format called "Mars" (a kind of improved PDF).
- jett, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I found it strange that no one mentioned PDFRedirect. The non-pro version works great for me (Windows only)
- lionslair, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Another one you can use is http://www.primopdf.com
- Tippis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1pdfLaTeX is very nice...
...although hyperref could use some updating -- that's where much of the *real* magic lies. - imtigger2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1What I need is one button that will convert my open Word doc to PDF, then open an email dialog with the pdf attached it... allll ready to go, and fast.
Any ideas? - obendega, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Thank you Natch! I was waiting for someone to mention google docs. That is what I use when I need to create PDFs.
- guygurari, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1iText ( http://www.lowagie.com/iText/ ) is an open-source Java library for creating PDFs. It supplies a standard Java Graphics implementation that allows you to easily 'draw' the PDF as you would draw on the screen or on a printer page. You can also access the lower-level PDF stuff if you need to.
I've used iText in a large printing-related project, and it was a *huge* success. Highly recommended. - franksmith, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1PDF creator rocks.... but then again, I have Office 2007 and just downloaded the add-in that notnoisy just mentioned (THANKS!) so it looks like PDF creator may not be long for the world (hard drive)
- jinglee, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Hopefully they dont contain that watermark that says that it is a free software..I hated it when it came last time I used one...
- t0mmmmmmm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1PDF generation for the adventurous:
http://www.printaform.com.au/clients/pdfapi2/ - AngryPenguin47, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I use Ubuntu, here's what I do, If I'm printing in firefox. Ctrl + p>print to file>
Then, from the CLI,
ps2pdf >filename<
converts postscript to pdf files.
sudo apt-get install ps2pdf if you dont already have it. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The only problem I've had w/ PDF creator is trying to install it as a print server for my users. They use these assinine, non-standard custom variables to refer to redirect locations with virtually no documentation (REDMONComputer? wtf? use %system%!), the logs don't always get written when something happens so you can't troubleshoot easily, and even though they claim you can run the driver software as a service it's never worked for me (apparently many other people have the same problem) so you have to have a user logged in at the server console with the application running for it to work.
Uh.... no thanks. - zerblat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Or you could just install cups-pdf and then add a PDF printer: http://newbie.linuxworldnet.com/print-to-pdf-cups-pdf/ (not my blog)
- charlietuna, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I have the following run every minute as a cron job:
#!/bin/sh
# -*- shell-script -*-
OLD_WD="${PWD}"
cd ${HOME}/workarea/pdf/
for f in ${HOME}/*.ps
do
if [ -f "$f" ]; then
RES=$(tail -n1 "${f}" | grep -q '%%EOF' ; echo $?)
if [[ ${RES} -eq 0 ]]; then
ps2pdf14 "$f" && rm -f "$f"
fi
fi
done
cd "${OLD_WD}"
then I print to file, suffixed with .ps in my home directory. this converts 'em - FizixMan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I know this is a shot in the dark, but does anyone know of any solutions that can embed (but especially convert files to U3D) 3D content into the PDF's? My company was going to use Adobe 3D, but we're hitting a roadblock as we can't use it on a web server (legally/feasibly) and now we're faced with the aspect of finding a way to make U3D files. Any help would be greatly greatly appreciated!
- Atomic1fire, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Open office
it works well enough - imtigger2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Thanks jm :)
- gameguy43, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1anyone know of a script (preferably php or some other web language) that can convert a pdf into txt (the more complex pdf's that is). Also could use the same for a .tims file.
- DietMountainDew, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Its called openoffice.org.
- michaelae, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I was a fan of PrimoPDF until I had to print a publisher document with photos. The photos came out looking like crap.
- angusdev, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0PDFCreator + Foxit+ PDFtk
- DnasTheGreat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Hmm, I somehow don't see the point of this article.... KDE and GTK apps both have Print to File options built into their print tools, no need to even install a virtual printer.
- jmcadres, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Not free......but bluebeam will "convert your open Word doc to PDF, then open an email dialog with the pdf attached it... allll ready to go, and fast". I've been using it since 2001 for Word, Excel, AutoCAD, etc.
http://www.bluebeam.com/web03/products/BbLT-download.asp?src=3301 - sensia3, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Reminds me the two step process (postscript followed by ghostscript) of generating my pdfs when I don't have access to chilly acrobat distiller or nagging freewares and a mac.
But I think new xps format from M$ will somewhat kill the monopoly of pdf. - SmartITGuy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0BullZip PDF is free even for commercial purposes.
Leaves no watermarks eiither. Requires GPL GhostScript. - mikaelc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0XPS is quite open:
"...Microsoft plans to freely license XPS technology to encourage its use as general-purpose documents. Microsoft will grant a royalty-free copyright license to copy, display, and distribute the XML Paper Specification. Microsoft will also grant a royalty-free patent license to read, write and render XPS Documents. Execution of the licenses will be straightforward and will not require the company to sign and return the license agreement..."
(From the MS License overview: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/xpslicense.mspx) -
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