Create and Work with PDF Documents (without Going Broke)
The Portable Document Format (PDF), created by Adobe Systems, is the most
popular way to share documents because of the way it maintains the formatting,
layout, images, fonts and more of the original document.
If you go to the source and purchase Adobe Acrobat (www.adobe.com/products/acrobatpro/acrobatstd.html)
you are likely to spend $299. This might seem a little pricey for someone who
doesn't create PDFs everyday. It also contains many more features than most
of us will ever use. Luckily, you can create and manipulate PDFs cheaply, or
even for free.
Creating PDFs
When I first started searching for PDF creators I was surprised to find many
more than I expected. But while there are quite a few free and low-cost programs
for creating PDFs that are less than reliable, there are some that won't let
you down.
» PrimoPDF (www.primopdf.com)
is an application that is installed on your computer as a printer driver. That
means you can use it with any application. All you need to do is select File > Print in
your application and then choose PrimoPDF from the dropdown list.
PrimoPDF offers many options for creating PDF documents optimized for viewing
on-screen, in an electronic book reader or printing.
You can even add a password to the PDF to prevent users from printing, copying,
or modifying the file. You can also change the document's meta information,
such as title, author, subject and keywords.
PrimoPDF has some drawbacks, like its slow processing speed and the advertisement
that appears on the application's dialog box when you print. But it does produces
crisp PDF documents while maintaining internal and external links from the
original file. The advertisement does not appear anywhere on the final document.
» PDFCreator (www.pdfforge.org/products/pdfcreator)
is also installed as a printer driver and works right out of the box, but improves
after you play with some of the settings. One nice feature is the ability to
set the resolution of the PDF and ensure that it opens as quickly as possible
when it's posted on the Web. You can also configure PDFCreator to compress
the file and to include all or just some of the fonts on your computer in the
document.
When you "print" to a PDF file, a dialog box appears. Here you can add information
about the file: title, author, the date on which it was created and keywords.
This dialog box also contains two other buttons: one to override any options
that you have set, and another for e-mailing the PDF. Click Save. Unless you're
working with a large document, you should have a PDF file within a few seconds.
If you have a home or small office network, you can install PDFCreator on
a server. Anyone using the network can get access to PDFCreator and create
PDFs without installing the software. You do, however, need to have the PDFCreator
program running on the server for this work.
Manipulating Your PDFs
These programs mentioned work great when turning a normal word-processing
document into a PDF, but eventually you will find yourself in a situation where
you need a software tool that can emulate some of Acrobat's more robust editing
features. Adding and deleting pages, inserting text, rotating pages and more
can be accomplished with free or low-cost programs.
» PDF Split and Merge (www.pdfsam.org)
will let you add a graphic or image file as a coversheet to a PDF document
that already exists. Just tell PDF Split and Merge what files you want to work
with, give the combined file a name, and click the Run button. It can combine
and break apart PDF files into any final result you require. And, unlike some
software used for combining PDF files, PDF Split and Merge retains internal
and external links, as well as any bookmarks in the files.
» PDFTK (www.accesspdf.com/pdftk/)
is a powerful tool for working with PDF files. It can combine and split PDFs,
add security to a file, attach other files (like a spreadsheet) to a PDF and
more.
First, a word of warning: PDFTK is a command line tool, which means opening
a command prompt and typing a long string of hard-to-read, difficult-to-remember
commands to get it to work. It looks something like this: pdftk manual.pdf
attach_files command_ref.html to_page 24 output user_manual.pdf
Normally I wouldn't have even mentioned this program if not for the graphical
user interface for PDFTK, called GUI for PDFTK (www.paehl.de/pdf/?GUI_for_PDFTK).
No typing, just point and click. The interface for PDFTK isn't pretty, and
it only gives you access to a small subset of PDFTK's full functionality, but
they are the ones you're most likely to use.
If you want to edit a PDF in any other way, such as adding text or graphics,
or changing colors, you need to open your wallet. Two good tools are PDFEdit995 (www.pdfedit995.com/)
and the Foxit PDF Editor (www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/pe_intro.php).
PDFEdit995 is free, but includes an ad that appears whenever it is run. Getting
rid of the ad costs $9.95. Foxit PDF Editor, on the other hand, will set you
back an entire decimal place ($99). As with any other software, your needs
and your budget will dictate what options and software best suit your needs.
While you might miss out on the convenience of having everything you might
need in one package, like Adobe Acrobat, you don't need to spend a lot of money
(or any at all) to create and work with PDFs. There's a lot of free and cheap
software available on the Web that can handle whatever PDF needs you have.
