2004/08/18
As many webmasters seek a low cost PDF creation solution, I captured these articles of interest as a start point for their search.
After reading the opinions and tests below, I didn't identify a sure fire value winner in the PDF creation applications, so I would be inclined to investigate the no cost, no ad choices. The www.gobcl.com service looks particularly interesting. As an existing Adobe Acrobat owner, I haven't personally followed up on most of these PDF converters, but I'm going to investigate the other file conversions offered with some of these.
PC Magazine has a comprehensive in depth review of PDF creation applications. It is a good primer on the differing features and performance. It will help one identify criteria of greatest interest.
TechTV reviewed CutePDF in this article.
A blurb from Langalist dated 05/02/6 offers this suggestion: I just wanted to offer one other alternative site for those who may want to write PDF files from their documents. The website is http://www.exp-sytems.com, where they offer both a free program, PDF Redirect, and an upgraded program PDF Redirect Pro. The free program is remarkable, is very simple to use, and handles large files very well. The Pro version has more added features over the basic free version. One very nice thing is that the Pro version has a 90 day trial period, and costs only $19.99 to purchase the license for. Both will even create a PDF file from an "E" size architectural drawing without losing any detail. I think it is probably the best free PDF writer I have tried, so much so I decided to purchase the licensed copy to support the good works.
The following are excerpts from www.tourbus.com newsletters that collectively are a useful presentation of the low cost options. At the end of this page is a blurb on an inexpensive PDF form filler application.
----------------- Create Cheap PDFs -----------------
Talking about frogs, by now you've no doubt encountered a squillion Adobe Acrobat PDF files. [Yes, I know. I *really* need to work on my segues.] PDF files preserve the layout and appearance of an original document and, with Adobe's free Acrobat reader, can be viewed on almost any type of computer imaginable -- PCs, Macs, *nix boxes, handhelds, etc.
How do you create PDF files? Well, if you can afford it, the best way is to purchase Adobe Acrobat 6 from your local mom and pop computer shop. The street price for Acrobat 6 Professional is US$449 and the price for Acrobat 6 Standard is $299. Educators and students can get Acrobat 6 Professional for just under $100 from your college bookstore or journeyed.com.
But what if you can't afford to buy Acrobat? Are there any other options? Yep. If you "compute with fruit," Mac OS X comes with built-in PDF functionality. Just choose Print Preview from any Mac application and then choose Save as PDF.
If you don't have a Mac, or if you only have a couple documents you want to convert, check out https://createpdf.adobe.com/ All you have to do is create a free Adobe login and then upload up to five documents that Adobe will automatically PDF-ify for you. It's that simple. And since this service is Web-based, it doesn't matter what type of computer or operating system you have.
Once you have converted five documents, though, you have to subscribe to Adobe's PDF Online service for US$9.99 a month ($99.00 a year), buy your own copy of Acrobat, or download a shareware PDF printer driver like pdf995 for the PC at www.pdf995.com/download.html or PrintToPDF for the Mac at www.jwwalker.com/pages/pdf.html
Neither printer driver is tremendously expensive. pdf995 is "annoyware" -- you can use it for free, but each time you do it will open a sponsor page in your Web browser. For US$9.95 you can disable this little "feature." PrintToPDF is $20, and works in Mac OS 7, 8, and 9. [PrintToPDF *kind* of works in OS X if your applications are running in "classic" mode, but why bother? OS X already ships with built-in PDF-making functionality.]
Another way to create free PDFs, one that borders on the dishonest [but is recommended by many research universities and national laboratories], is to print the document you want to PDF-ify as a Postscript file and then convert that Postscript file to a PDF using GhostScript. I think. Robert Steinmetz posted some instructions (in PDF format, of course) at http://www.arriscad.com/IABC2002/Seminar_PDFs/PDFwriter.pdf but I don't pretend to understand how these instructions work. In fact, unless you are REALLY techno-savvy, this doesn't look like it is a particularly easy thing to do.
Inserted by Gord 2004/09/13: For another free way to integrate the Ghostscript the PDF solution, try http://www.lexacorp.com.pg/makepdf.html.
I hope this helps! :)
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Update: Create Cheap PDFs
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I am convinced that Tourbus has the smartest, most helpful, and best- looking passengers in the world. In my last post [which you can find in the Tourbus archives at http://tourbus.com/archives/ ] I mentioned a few ways to create Adobe Acrobat PDF files without having to spend a lot of money, and your fellow passengers responded with suggestions for a slew of other, wonderful PDF tools.
Microsoft Office doesn't come with built-in PDF support, so if you want to convert an Office document into PDF you have to purchase Adobe Acrobat, use an online conversion site, or download and install a special program or printer driver. But, passengers "Ctropila," "Buck," David, Ron, Loren, and Dana all wrote in to remind me that, unlike Microsoft Office, Corel's Word Perfect Office *DOES* support PDF creation straight out of the box. You can download a 30 day evaluation copy of Word Perfect at http://corel.com
Of course, what started this whole journey into PDF-land was a desire on my part to create PDFs cheaply. So buying a whole new office suite, even if that suite doesn't carry the Microsoft logo, kind of defeats the purpose. John, Kevin, Andrew, Ulrich, Chris, Michael, Johnnie, and Timothy offer a different suggestion: use OpenOffice. OpenOffice comes with a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation manager, and a drawing program. The latest version of OpenOffice -- OpenOffice 1.1 beta -- even comes with PDF and Macromedia Flash export. Oh, and OpenOffice is completely free. You can download it at www.openoffice.org
If downloading and installing a whole new office suite doesn't sound too appetizing, fear not. Your fellow Tourbus passengers have other PDF tools they recommend!
For online document conversion (a la Adobe's createpdf.adobe.com), Tony, Jeff, and Paul recommend goBCL at www.gobcl.com and an entirely different Jeff recommends Carnegie Mellon's TOM Server at http://wheel.compose.cs.cmu.edu:8001/cgi-bin/browse/objweb Both services appear to be free, but Jeff #2 warns that CMU's server can be a bit flaky at times. [I think that has something to do with Carnegie Mellon's close proximity to the "Squirrel Hill" section of Pittsburgh.] :P
If you have Postscript files that you would like to convert to PDFs online, Rodney and Bill recommend PS2PDF at www.ps2pdf.com/convert/i
If you'd rather download and install a PDF converter on your computer, you have a BUNCH of options. Keith and "R" both found a free converter called "Gymnast" at www.oakworth.demon.co.uk/gymnast.htm
The registration code is in the yellow box at the top of the page. Another free converter, courtesy of rider Cy, is PDFProducer at http://naramcheez.netfirms.com/pdfproducer.html
Reuben wrote in to suggest Blue Squirrel's US$18.95 Click2PDF at www.bluesquirrel.com/products/click2pdf/
and Cees has had good success with 602 Pro Print Pack at www.software602.com/products/printpack/
which you purchase for US$19.95. Barry and Becki suggest RoboPDF at www.ehelp.com/products/robopdf/
which (like many of the programs mentioned in today's post) is free to try, but US$49.99 for the licensed version. Michael recommends PDFMailer, which lets you email the output of any program as a PDF. You can download a free version at www.oneclickusa.com
and the standard version is US$49.99. Anne, Thomas, and Fred all seem to like the US$49.00 pdfFactory at www.fineprint.com/products/pdffactory/
David and Alex both recommend the US$129.99 PagePlus 8 PDF Edition at www.serif.com/pageplus/pageplus8pdf/index.asp
and Callie puts in a plug for the US$40.00 MakePDF for Word at www.docauto.com/MakePDF.htm
For our passengers down under, Greg recommends the Jaws PDF Creator from www.ylink.com.au/ The trial version is free, and the licensed version is (oddly enough) US$100 including GST. [I say "oddly enough" because I assumed that the product would be priced in Australian dollars, not US dollars.]
And, if you're willing to ditch Windows altogether [or partition your computer so that you can run multiple operating systems], Ron mentions that Mandrake Linux 9.1 with KDE comes with a built-in PDF printer driver. Other flavors of *nix may offer the same features. Check around. :)
Linda reminded me that college bookstores and Journeyed.com aren't the only sources for student versions of software: there are other resellers out there that offer the educational discount - for example, PC Connection and Insight. Educators should check with their purchasing office to see which vendors are used by their schools because often the vendor will extend the school's pricing for personal purchases which means that a better price than the vendors web price may actually be available.
And, finally, James, Michael, and Richard all called me on the carpet for saying that using Ghostscript to convert files to PDF "borders on the dishonest." Are you serious? I'm a registered Acrobat 6 owner but you missed one point about PDF. It is an open standard. Adobe publishes the specs and says, not in so many words, that if you want to write your own software to make it, read it, whatever, go right ahead. All PDF is is an extension to Postscript. That being said, Ghostscript is a perfectly legit way to process files into PDF. Having used it on a Linux system though I must say that fall far short of what the full version can do. What I meant to say was that, after being told for years that you have to pay for commercial software like Acrobat, creating PDF files for free *feels* dishonest to me. But that's just me. I misspoke. I apologize.
Here's a twist---a tool for filling out PDF-based forms:
Fred, As a Plus member the last few years, I have found many useful tips and programs in your newsletter. I recently discovered a program that others might also find useful. One of my (increasingly many) pet peeves is that all of my medical and dental claim forms are PDF files, some with fill in fields and some without. The ones with fields can be filled in and printed, but not saved unless you have Adobe writer. After searching and trying several shareware programs that purported to solve this problem, I found PDFill http://www.pdfill.com This shareware program not only allows you to fill in and save PDF forms that have fields, but also allows you to add your own text fields in PDF forms without them. The program has other more advanced features which I have not needed, but if they work as well as the basic functions I would expect them to work well. The program may be downloaded as a full featured trial version that adds a watermarked ad across the saved page. Registration to remove the ad is only $9.99. Other programs that I looked at were much more expensive and didn't work nearly as well.