There is no doubt that Adobe PDF Writer is one of the best PDF creator but it comes with a price tag. In this post we will look at some good alternatives to Adobe PDF Writer.
Desktop PDF Writers
You can download and use these applications (some of them are paid):
1. Primo Pdf – Free and Best PDF Writer available in the market
- Available free to download from the http://www.primopdf.com/
- Create PDF files from 300+ file types
- Creates PDF files faster with the only free PDF creator to support one-click, drag-and-drop PDF creation.
- You can convert to PDF from any file you can print, including Microsoft® Word, Excel®, and PowerPoint® formats.
- Make PDF files for different uses, including online viewing, eBooks, office printing, and prepress
- Append PDF files after they are converted
- One of the best thing about Primo PDF is that is can Secure PDFs with passwords and add document information (title, author, etc.) during creation
- Fast, intelligent one-button creation from Microsoft® Word, Excel®, and PowerPoint®
I like this one the best of the PDF Writers. No additional software, add-ons required. Just install and it’s ready.
2. PDFCreator – Free PDF Writer, easy to use
- Can be downloaded freely from SourceForge site – http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/
- Can create PDFs from any program that can print
- Can send generated files via eMail
- Can digitally sign your PDFs to ensure that you are the author and the file has not been modified
- Can encrypt PDFs and protect them from being opened, printed etc (Personally was not able to test this functionality)
- Can autoSave files to folders and filenames based on Tags like Username, Computername, Date, Time etc.
3. OpenOffice 3 Suite
- It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose from site – http://www.openoffice.org/
- It can create .PDF files on the fly from all types of formats it can handle.
- OpenOffice.org is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more.
- It is available in many languages and works on all common computers.
- It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages.
4. Microsoft Office 20xx
Latest versions of the popular Microsoft Office have facility of creating PDF.
- It can be purchased from market or from Microsoft website
- It can create .PDF files from within Microsoft Office Access 2007, Excel 2007, InfoPath 2007, OneNote 2007, PowerPoint 2007, Publisher 2007, Visio 2007 and Microsoft Office Word 2007 and higher MS Office 2010
- For legal MS Office 2007 users who have bought MS Office early, an Add-in can be downloaded from Microsoft website – http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=4d951911-3e7e-4ae6-b059-a2e79ed87041&displaylang=en. In later releases of MS Office 2007, Save as PDF functionality is available by default.
5. CutePDF
- Can be downloaded for free from – http://www.cutepdf.com/Products/CutePDF/writer.asp
- Create a PDF file from almost any printable document.
- FREE for commercial and non-commercial use! No watermarks! No Popup Web Ads!
- Only drawback – it needs other software to be installed to work.