Make Your Own PDF Documents

Another quick one for tonight.

At some point you may have written up a document which you want to share with someone but are wary of them tampering or altering your original content (perhaps even going to the extent of using it as their own). These could be PowerPoint slides or important Word documents. Otherwise, you might want to share something that doesn’t come in a self-contained format such as non-public webpages or put some material on an eBook reader.

Conversion to PDF would solve these problems in most cases but making your own PDF document is still a mystery to a lot of people. Here’s how to make your own.

If you have Microsoft Office 2010 you have the ability to save directly to PDF through the “Save As” menu and choosing “PDF” in the “Save as type” drop down menu.

If you have Microsoft Office 2007, you need to install an add-in to enable the ability to save to PDF which can be found here. Once installed, you can select the “Save or Publish to PDF or XPS” option in the “Office” or “File” menus in any of the Microsoft Office Applications.

If you are still using a version of Microsoft Office older than 2007, you can download and install CutePDF which is basically a printer driver that will spit out a PDF instead of a printed piece of paper. Once installed, you just need to attempt to print the document as per normal but select the “CutePDF Writer” as the target printer and click “Print”.

CutePDF Printer

You’ll then be prompted for a location to save the PDF after which your PDF will be created.

CutePDF is also handy even if you have Microsoft Office 2007 or 2010 if you want to turn things other than Microsoft Office documents into PDF documents. I have found CutePDF to be the best as it doesn’t nag you to buy an upgraded version, it isn’t terribly bloated either and I’ve never suffered a crash as a result of creating a PDF.

Hopefully that removes  the mystery behind creating PDFs!