Pdf Files

[Samrc]

At work I use Adobe Acrobat to create pdf documents but it is expensive.

 

We are considering using the program pdf995 on other office machines. Any comments about it?

 

What other programs do you use to make pdf files?

 

-Samantha

[TCH-Bruce]

Are they single documents or do you need to manipulate them creating indexes and stuff like that?

 

I have heard people recommend pdf995 but Adobe has released something called Adobe Acrobat Elements. I got a copy when I purchased my Dell laptop. It creates PDFs by printing to a printer you define similar to Distiller. It was only $18 when I purchased it with the Dell. Works well for quick PDFs.

[borfast]

I use OpenOffice

[stevevan]

For now, Acrobat. (Don't ask where/how I got it! I don't remember. Honest! )

[boxturt]

I use Open Office as well, it's a very nice package.

[wampthing]

CutePDF is better than pdf995 in my opinion. No pop up windows after you create a pdf.

[schussat]

Since I do most of document-generating in LaTeX, I usually use latexpdf. For non-LaTeX documents I occasionally use OpenOffice, but I've also found that a combination of a postscript printing driver and ps2pdf (part of the ghostscript package) will generate great PDFs. Just use the Adobe-supplied postscript driver to save to a file, and then use ps2pdf to make the pdf. Totally free, and works with just about any application that can print.

[surefire]

I had to create a pdf file today and tried all sorts of software: pdf995, cutepdf(free), primopdf, etc.

 

Problem was that my links in Word wouldn't convert to links in the resulting pdfs unless they were set up as www.whatever.xxx So, "click here" with link didn't work.

 

I was banging my head against the wall... until I thought, hey, I bet the folks at TCH covered this one somewhere before. Sure enough, here it is. Open Office works like a charm.

 

Only question I have... Is there a way to password protect a pdf file creating in Open Office?

[borfast]

Jack, I don't think there is. Actually, I'm not even sure if any of the other solutions provides that feature. PrimoPDF allows you to password protect PDFs but I can't find any reference to OpenOffice and password protected PDFs.

 

By the way, here's another suggestion: PDFCreator - I don't know this one but I've heard good things about it.

Edited December 1, 2005 by borfast

[Deverill]

Samantha,

I use PDF995 quite a bit at work and it works fine. Annoying popup window and all.

 

Open Office is a good alternative if you are allowed to use it. At work we have some restrictions but that's what I use at home. Of course, it's not so easy if what you want to pdf-ize isn't a word processor, spreadsheet, etc document. PDF995 would work in anything you were trying to print where OO may not.

[surefire]

I'm pretty sure pdf creator was one of the ones I tried. All of these options create pdfs... but I have only found one solution that correctly grabs links out of a Word document even when the url isn't spelled out. For example, if you put 'click here' and the phrase has a hyperlink in the Word document, most pdf printers won't find the hyperlink.

 

But I'd be happy to be wrong.