My 4 Fave PDF Producing Programs + some online options

by Crys Williams on 2008.04.18

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Yesterday I posted about the glories of PDF documents and highlighted features you can easily leverage for your business. I also had a tiny rant about reader-friendly features going unused, and listed some folks who create PDFs that work all the best bits.

Today I’m on the coolest of cool things about Adobe’s PDFs, which is you don’t have to buy a pricey Adobe product to make them! There are stacks of free and affordable ways to create PDFs: downloadable desktop applications, online services, and as a feature in programs we already use.

Here are the 4 programs I use to make PDFs, plus some online options:

My Favorite PDF Makers

CutePDF
Free application with affordable professional version

CutePDF is the coolest of the free PDF applications, not only because it’s ad-free, but also because it’s dead easy to use. “CutePDF Writer” appears among my list of printers, so I just print to it from any application, just like I print stuff to my inkjet or laser. These PDFs are searchable with selectable text, but don’t have working hyperlinks. Clearly not ideal for creating a consumer product, but a super-quick and easy way to archive contracts, faxes, and such.

The Professional version is a desktop application with advanced features, including digital signatures, page manipulation (crop, rotate, etc.), watermarks and other cool stuff I don’t need right now but might want on hand for other projects. I’m looking forward to playing with the free trial—it’s less than $50 to buy at the moment, and includes their Form Filler app for free. Hmmm…

SnagIt
Desktop application feature
SnagIt is the BEST way to take snapshots of websites. The Autoscroll feature automatically moves down pages that are longer than my screen, capturing it entirely from top to bottom. An absolute must for adding to my website design morgue, collecting web content for my class research, and printing online receipts. It was well worth playing with their free trial … and the $40 I handed over when I couldn’t live without it. There’s even a toolbar for Firefox.

Google Docs
Web application feature
PDF is included among Google Docs’ file download options with Word, OpenOffice, and other file formats. The PDF documents generated by Google Docs manage images, page breaks, font color, and text highlighting without a hitch. The only problem I have is getting the Bookmark hyperlinks to work, like for a Table of Contents. I blame myself though, and will continue to fiddle with it.

InDesign CS
Desktop application feature
Out of all the applications I use, InDesign CS2 has the most powerful PDF creation features. Above all, I love that I can configure the settings just so, then save all those picky bits as a custom-named preset. Settings include password protection, optimized onscreen reading, image compression, crop marks, whether or not to include hyperlinks and bookmarks, and other stuff that I have no clue about. Powerful and amazing, but I’d be quite the hypocrite if I created an eBook on Going NoWare using a desktop application!

Creating PDFs Online

I recently found out about Create Adobe PDF Online a few days ago, and was a little surprised at the price. Compared to their other products, the $10/month is quite affordable, but compared to other PDF making applications (online and off), it’s just silly.

I sampled what I could with the free trial, and was disappointed by the resulting documents (no active hyperlinks, but I could have missed a setting). I really liked the delivery options, though: email as attachment, email a link, wait in the browser, etc. But a quick Google search for free online PDF converters yielded a handful of free web-based converters worth trying, notably:

Et tu? Do you especially like or dislike any of my choices? Have you tried some of the online options? Lemme know down below!

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