I pump product rarely. But I stumbled on to this neat little site last night for switching Word Documents into PDF files. PDF Online. It can handle Word files up to 2 MB and switch them into PDF for free.
2 MB gets eaten up nearly instantly if you use photos in the document, so they also have a paid product that works like a printer driver in Word. So write up the Word document, then simply “print” it and select the driver in the pull down menu like you would select a different printer. $15 and downloadable.
I didn’t use the free less than 2 MB version, but the paid version was amazingly fast and I’m just never going to print anything “pretty” in anything other than a PDF file now. Just droolingly better to look at.
Obviously it lacks all of the Adobe package goodies. But $15 vs $299 and up, I think you see what I like about it.
Jim Duncan
November 29, 2007 at 7:00 pm
Even better, use openoffice or neooffice on a mac – It’s free.
Athol Kay
November 29, 2007 at 9:59 pm
Gah… a Mac Attack 🙂
loren nason
November 29, 2007 at 11:25 pm
Athol,
Use Primo PDF it’s free and it works as a print driver.
Or if you have Office 2007 you can download the PDF creation plugin from Microsoft for Free
Loren
Athol Kay
November 29, 2007 at 11:29 pm
This is how I learn things. I make a woefully wrong post and then everyone corrects me in the comments.
Tomorrow we discuss building particle accelerators from things you can buy from Wal-Mart.
Carson Coots
November 29, 2007 at 11:47 pm
OpenOffice is great on PC as well… not that I use a PC, pssh.
But in those dark days I used OpenOffice because A: Free B: Doc to PDF.
Please post more tools if you find them though.
Jonathan Dalton
November 30, 2007 at 8:35 am
Great post! Oh wait. This isn’t Active Rain.
Get PrimoPDF. Used it for all of the floor plans on my Westbrook Village site.
Mariana
November 30, 2007 at 8:42 am
I can’t wait for your particle-accellerator post, Athol.
Mariana
November 30, 2007 at 9:09 am
(And yes. PrimoPDF is the BombDotCom!)
Atlanta Real Estate
September 6, 2009 at 11:38 pm
Athol,
Nice try! Nobody is all knowing. Interesting timing because just two weeks ago I discovered that my Adobe Distiller 6.0 (very old) will NOT load its print driver onto Windows 7.
So, I asked a friend in the SW biz if he could “help out” and he said there’s like 20 free PDF creators out there now. He was right and they all work!
News to me. And you, but no worries!
Thanks,
Rob
Julia
September 9, 2011 at 8:14 am
I use Nitro PDF and it will also add text or a previously scanned "signature stamp" which is really useful when you need to sign something but don't want to print it (or use docusign type thingys). You can also password protect the signature feature alone.
Also looking forward to the particle accelerator post but only if components are available from Target.