PDF files

[bruce johnson]

A few questions on PDFs. For some reason, I am behind the curve here, computer skill wise as well. I get a few PDFs and always thought they were kind of nice. My question now has to do with the advantage of PDFs vs. other formats, and making them. I did a little searching around, and found software to make them anywhere in cost from professional grade down to free software donwloads. Any advice on how to do them, and which program may be the handiest would be appreciated.

[mikeymoto]

A few questions on PDFs. For some reason, I am behind the curve here, computer skill wise as well. I get a few PDFs and always thought they were kind of nice. My question now has to do with the advantage of PDFs vs. other formats, and making them. I did a little searching around, and found software to make them anywhere in cost from professional grade down to free software donwloads. Any advice on how to do them, and which program may be the handiest would be appreciated.

Lots of people like PDF because it is common, and perhaps more importantly because it's an easy way to distribute "read only" copies of documents. It helps prevent other people from making changes to your document and redistributing it.

To take full advantage of PDF you need Adobe Acrobat. If you want to read PDFs you can use Adobe Acrobat Reader, or one of many other applications. Some applications let you "save as" PDF format. Others don't. If you want to save as a simple PDF you can get free things to do it, like CutePDF which I have used and it is relatively simple.

[TwinOaks]

Hi Bruce,

Mikeymoto has hit the most important aspect of .PDF files- they are commonly 'read only'.

This has a lot of advantages for the business person. Consider if you sent someone a quote on a saddle, via email, and they removed a zero or two from the price. .PDF files prevent a lot of that. Though it is possible to modify a .PDF, you need the full version of Adobe Acrobat (or similar software)to do it, and I think the file would show that it's been modified. And if the persons can afford the full licensed version....they are NOT worried about the price of a saddle. Still, there are some people who can get around it, just like anything else. It's a good tool to have. Mikey gave a link for a .PDF creator, and I'm pretty sure OpenOffice.org is able to save as .PDF.

[Leerwerker]

The biggest advantage of .pdf's are that you can transport images and documents from one computer to the next and this document will always print the way the creator of it intended.

In the old days you would create a doc in WordPerfect and then someone in MS Word had to reformat the whole thing if they did not have the same printer or fonts as on the original machine ...

[Johanna]

I have the full Adobe Acrobat. If anyone needs a pdf made, email it to:

admin@leatherworker.net with PDF in the subject line, and I'll fire it back to you right away.

Johanna

[David Genadek]

Adobe acrobat is one of my most used programs. To me it is the one program that really makes your computer a commmunication center. The ability to easily bring together content from multiple formats into a single format make it indespensilbe in my book. For those that don't know PDF stand for Portable documant format. They now have a version that can PDF 3d documents and the most recent version of reader will allow anyone to see 3d work too.

David Genadek

[paris3200]

I realize this is an old topic, but I thought I should mention that you don't have to have adobe acrobat to create a pdf. Say for instance that you've typed up a quote or an invoice and that you want to email someone. If you type it up using open office, www.OpenOffice.org, you can simply create a pdf by clicking the 'export directly as pdf' button in the toolbar.

Jason

[$$hobby]

just an Fyi. i think the newer MS Word has the addition of creating PDFs.

[Duke]

adobe writer is a good program, and has worked wonders for me. you can pay for it, or download it from a p2p site.good luck

[8thsinner]

At the minute I have thousands of pdfs.

And through a lot of trial and error I have found PDF creator spool, ie print to pdf from any format that can be printed whether it's images or spread sheets, also works in batches, combines files in any order too. Absolutely must have for frequent pdf users.

Mind you, if I have serious production to do I would most likely use quark and convert automatically to pdf with it..

It's great when you can use firefox to save web pages then turn them into instructional manuals in just a few minutes collating entire lists of pages...Like for example a 23 page guide to the katana..or what ever your into...

Most of my books however are sci fi, something like 14,830 of them at last count, hehe yeah I am a download hog...

ANother program i have found invaluable when it comes to organizing things and indexing files is...karens directory printer...it can take any directory and list either file totals size totals, names, attributes, last used etc from

Another one thats super handy is...lupas rename for renaming very large directories.

Sorry to brag on I guess I am a bit of a geek..

[ArtS]

Thanks. You'll find a lot of are closet geeks here.

Art