Generating PDF Files Easily

Posted on July 13, 2009 by paschott

Maybe I’m one of the few who struggle with this, but one of the problems I seem to run into regularly is the need to just take a simple document already in my possession and convert it into a PDF so many other people can view it. Some programs such as OpenOffice.org have this built in as an option or as a free add-on (Office 2007 has an add-on that users can download for example).  Other programs come bundled with a special printer that will generate PDFs, but it almost always seems like that print driver only works with that one program.

Even at work, I need to convert web pages or parts of web pages into PDF files so others can easily view them with the original formatting. At times I can generate reports myself using native tools, but when I need to convert something, I find I’ll generally need a piece of software to do the job. I’m primarily a Windows user, so please bear with me as I am not familiar with the offerings for other operating systems.

Being a Windows user, one of the best tools I’ve found to generate PDF files is PrimoPDF. I don’t receive any money for mentioning this tool, but I have to say that their free version found right on the home page works extremely well and with very little effort.  Simply install, open your document, Print, choose the PrimoPDF printer, and go. You’ll be prompted for your PDF options, most of which you won’t change very often, and a file name and location.  Just click the Create PDF button when you’re done.

Admittedly, this won’t do some of the more advanced effects that Adobe can handle natively, but if you want something affordable (free) that will generate a PDF that will work in probably 90-99% of your normal usage, I’d say you can’t go wrong with PrimoPDF.  If you find that you do need more (scripting, encryption, forms, pulling in content from multiple sources), be sure to look into Adobe’s licensing for non-profits before buying a copy of Acrobat. You may be able to get a pretty good discount on the full version of Acrobat.

On a related topic, one of the problems I have with PDF files is the amount of time Acrobat Reader normally takes to launch.  For those of you looking for a lightweight PDF reader, I’d suggest that you take a look at the free PDF reader by Foxit Software.  Just be careful when installing as it will prompt you several times about installing various toolbars that you may not want.  Read the prompts carefully and you should be fine. None of them are malicious, but you may not want another toolbar installed on your system.

I’m sure that those of you who are regular Mac users will have some suggestions. I know that Linux users generally have a lot of this functionality already available one way or another. For people like me who are primarily MS Windows users, we need to find ways to handle the various “opportunities” Microsoft has given us. PrimoPDF has worked far better and more easily than some other alternatives I have found and is installed on our church PC’s now when people need to generate PDF files. If you have any other feedback on tools that have worked well for you, please share them in the comments or in our forums.

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6 Responses to “Generating PDF Files Easily”

  1. Rick Wightman on July 13th, 2009 10:08 am

    Jim,

    We hack a “dummy” printer into the Windows registry to generate a ps file and then run ps2pdf from the Linux file server. It would need more finesse as an ad-hoc tool, but works really well to generate recurring (weekly) pdfs for the church web site (i.e. “The Banner”)

  2. Chris on July 13th, 2009 2:40 pm

    I also highly recommend CutePDF. Its a software that basically allows you to turn ANYTHING you would print into a PDF.

    http://www.cutepdf.com/

    -chris

  3. Richard on July 13th, 2009 5:58 pm

    Thanks for featuring our PrimoPDF tool on your site. Much appreciated!

  4. Stephen on July 29th, 2009 4:16 pm

    Here’s the best one that I’ve found:
    http://www.exp-systems.com/

    It far surpasses anything else that I’ve found.

  5. Mike Sessler on July 30th, 2009 6:32 am

    Creating PDFs on a Mac is easy. Select Print from the file menu, and choose “PDF” from the drop down menu on the lower left. And if you want to some minor editing, you can open it in Preview (which comes with the OS). You can even set a password for the PDF.

  6. Peter on July 30th, 2009 12:00 pm

    Stephen, I’ll have to take a look at the exp-systems tool. I hadn’t found that one before in my searching.

    Mike, thanks for the tip for Macs. Being primarily a Windows user, I wasn’t sure how that was handled in the Mac OS.