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:
- Neevia’s online PDF converter, which didn’t even require an email address
- Email a document to iPhone@PDFonline.com and BCL Technologies‘ server will reply with a converted PDF (and you don’t even need an iPhone)
Et tu? Do you especially like or dislike any of my choices? Have you tried some of the online options? Lemme know down below!
I think this is an excellent article – I have so many clients that ask ME to make PDF’s for them because they only need one – and it’s cheaper to pay me (I rarely charge tho) than buy Adobe Acrobat.
I feel sort of silly that I never searched out for a free alternative!
An excellent post that clearly matches your theme for your blog.
Shawn
Or you can get a MAC.
In OSX the print options in all software has the option to create a PDF. Preview, the graphic viewer that comes w/ a MAC also gives you the option to save an image as a pdf in addition to other formats. Screen and picture grab are also dead easy. A simple key combination and you can take a user defined picture, or a picture of the active window, or a picture of the desk top. Added bonuses: it doesn’t crash all the time, Keynote is much better presentation software compared to PowerPoint, Pages and Numbers both do a great job on docs and spreadsheets respectively. I can go on, and have been known to, just get a MAC and leave all your troubles behind.
Crystal,
This seems like a great list, thank you for sharing! I have only experience with CutePDF, which I use a lot at work and at home.
I use Google Docs but to be honest never knew it could do that, so thanks for pointing that out. It will come in handy and makes the program more flexible now.
I also used PDFCreator for a time http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/ but it had some issues with Windows Vista and that’s when I switched to CutePDF. It turns out I like CutePDF better now…
Thanks for a great post today – Brett
Recent blog post from Brett Legree: focus on writing – part 1 – back to the future.
James,
Yes, you could get a Mac as it will do all of those things – in fact, I’ll be getting a Mac soon, but for other reasons as well.
Although, that’s a bit of an extreme measure just to be able to make PDF’s!
If I didn’t need the Mac, I’d be happy with many of the programs Crystal mentioned.
-Brett
Recent blog post from Brett Legree: focus on writing – part 1 – back to the future.
Hi Shawn! Okay, now that’s funny. You hadn’t yet thought to find a free program, and I never thought to offer PDF creation as a service. DOH!
Glad you liked it!
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James, I would SO like to get a Mac, and any little excuse will do. Integrated PDFs, sexy interface, whatevah! I haven’t had a PC crash in years, I’d just like the option of using either platform.
As for screenshots, I have easy key combos on my PC, too, but a simple screenshot (from either platform) is nada compared to the magic of SnagIt. There are many, many image editing and clever features within the app that I didn’t touch on here.
Let it be said that I spend very little on software these days, but I practically threw my money at the the SnagIt folks when the trial period was up.
——-
Brettttt! Glad my little list has some new and old “friends” for you.
As for Google Docs, I’m regularly stunned by what it will and won’t do LoL I’ll be doing a post on writing applications very soon, with DarkCopy, Q10, Google Docs, et. al. …expect a little link love and more old/new friends
Thanks for the comments everyone! You make posting at 5pm on a Friday seem less like the rookie move that I know it is
Crystal,
I’ll look forward to that post as well, as you know it’s something I really like to write about (more coming form me too next week some time). I’ll be sure to return the link love, perhaps we can get some of our readers caught in a feedback loop and drive our traffic through the roof
Your last point made me laugh too, as I’d planned (ah, the mice & men thing…) to have a post out today. It will be out tomorrow, instead, and in spite of today being a better day for hits.
But you know, it will make more sense tomorrow… so tomorrow it is!
I’ll have to examine SnagIt in more detail tonight, as well.
Thanks again for the words.
-Brett
Recent blog post from Brett Legree: focus on writing – part 1 – back to the future.
(form / from) I can has butterfingerz
Recent blog post from Brett Legree: focus on writing – part 1 – back to the future.
OK, I’m convinced … I will take a look at SnagIt.
Great article, especially the part about creating PDF online. $10/month is not much but I prefer the rate to be based on usage over a flat rate.
James–Yay
Do let me know how you like it, even if you don’t'?
I could weep when I think of all my wasted hours both assembling and cropping my OS-generated screenshots.
Be sure to check out the easy-to-add stylized comment balloons, boxes, and such, as well as fades and other fancy edges for cropped shots. Here’s an example of how I used those features: Linking Outlook Items to a Contact
Hi Paul–Thanks! And welcome
I suspect usage based billing would be a nightmare for them, but I’d surely prefer pay-per-PDF to their flat fee if I was only creating a few PDFs each month.
Notably, unless it was critical to make the PDFs online, 5 months of Adobe’s fees would pay for the professional version of CutePDF—which has far more features than Adobe Online and a fixed one-time cost.
Nice article! Thanks! I know another good PDF tool. http://www.PDFfiller.com is a good one. Very simple and it works.
Hi Kelly and welcome!
I had a good time playing PDFFiller.com, especially with how easy it is to fiddle with font, font weight, font sizes, etc. Lots of export options too.
I particularly like that you can import a PDF from an URL and completely bypass saving it to the workstation…handy if you’re in an Internet Cafe, etc.
Thanks for the comment and the link!
————————
Readers beware: I went through the process and PDF Filler requires registration to save your work, and a paid subscription to print, email, export, or fax.
Also not, PDF Filler is only for filling out forms, and while there are plenty of ways to get your completed form (email, fax, etc.), it doesn’t appear that it either saves or exports documents back to PDF.
Recent blog post from Crystal: Dear Santa: A New Design Wishlist for Big Bright Bulb
I’m using Abbyy Pdf Transformer 2.0. It’s not so bad))) But your article is really good… I will try something from it.
Recent blog post from Ben: 1
CutePdf really is good, i confirm
I don’t quite like the idea of creating PDFs online… it’s strange, and also could make you share confidential data with the owners of the online pdf service… which is defenetly not something I would like. so, my vote goes only to “normal” applications, and not online pdf creators.
Just found this article and wanted to say that I use CutePDF a lot and love its ease of use. I use it mostly to quickly turn quotes and invoices into PDFs to email to clients.
I also manage the content for various websites and sometimes clients email me PDFs they want to upload but they’re huge. I open them, click print to CutePDF, simply change the settings to 300dpi for instance, and voila, the file size has been reduced significantly, making the PDF suitable to be put on a website.
What I do miss sometimes however is the option to easily change pages around or add/delete certain pages from the PDF. I hadn’t yet noticed that hyperlinks don’t work, I’ll keep that in mind, thanks.
pdf program is very interesting useful.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.