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PDF makers, what program do you use?


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PDFCreator
Digging thru their downloads is kind of confusing (and half the site is in german), so here's a direct link. Just download and run to install.

Why should you use it? It's totally free and super easy. It works like PDF995 except there's no advertising. It makes a virtual printer that spits out pdfs. If you can print a document, you can make a pdf from it.
 
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I have access to Acrobat Pro at work, so when I'm there I use that to make .pdfs - but there's no way I'd ever pay the outrageous prices they want for it for my personal use.

At home, I use cutepdf. It's free, it's not hard to use, and there's no popup ads or watermarks. On the other hand, it also has no features, aside from letting you print a document to .pdf. It works for now, but if there's something better out there, I wouldn't be shocked to hear about it.
 

Ok, finally downloaded CutePDF with converter and tried it out. My thoughts...

It's works great. Oh, sure. It's not fancy, but it is free and does what I asked for.

Thanks for the suggestion.
 


You may want to take another look at Openoffice.

If you download the current version (1.1.4, not 1.9) you can extend its rather limited PDF functionality wtih the "ExtendPDF" macro from the OOMacros project.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/ooomacros

You might need a bit of configuration hoops to get it to work (I believe you need a seperate Ghostscript install), but everything's free and the bookmark + size control is equal to or better than Adobe.
 


Silly me, forgot the three questions


1) What's a good program to use for a beginner but computer literate kind of guy?

Openoffice.org, with the ExtendedPDF macro. It can read Word documents, and once you set headings (which you should have done already) it can give you a fully bookmarked'd PDF.

2) How much does it cost?

Zero dollars for license, a significant download (around 80 MB, IIRC), and perhaps an hour to setup and another hour to learn to use.

3) How difficult is it to use?

For just PDF creation, it's great. If you don't use Word's intricate features, you may wind up replacing MS office with OpenOffice -- and even if you don't, you'll pick up on the differences quick enough.

OTOH, if you do use Word's intricate features (i.e., you create macros, use the built-in references, etc.) you might just go crazy at it.
 


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