I’ve already discussed about Sumatra – one of the best alternative software to read adobe acrobat PDF’s. PDF has become one of the most commonly and popularly used format. If you are an ebook writer or just want to publish your resume in PDF format, then you’ll need a good PDF writer / converter.
The problem is a PDF writer, lets say Adobe Acrobat Pro comes at a very high price. But what if we can get a PDF writer at a cheaper cost or even better for FREE! I have looked into a few FREE or almost FREE PDF writers and have summarized about them in this article.
1> Microsoft Word (2007) – Yes, if you did not know, then you can now use your latest version of Microsoft word to create PDF’s directly. If you have a legal copy of Microsoft word, then go to Microsoft Download page and download the SaveAsPDF Office Add – in.
The downloaded SaveAsPDF works with Microsoft Office Access 2007, Excel 2007, InfoPath 2007, OneNote 2007, PowerPoint 2007, Publisher 2007, Visio 2007 and Microsoft Office Word 2007.
It is supported on Windows XP SP2, windows 2003 and Windows Vista. Using this add in you can directly convert your doc into PDF or even email it as a PDF !!
2> OpenOffice – If you an open source geek, then you possibly know about Open Office, if you don’t then please go to www.openoffice.org and download the comeplete office suite, FREE!! It has a range of office products which actually acts as a replacement for Microsoft’s Office suite and PDF creator is one of them.
3> Gooo – www.go-oo.org is similar to OpenOffice and is another good alternative.
4> PDF reDirect.
4> PDFCreator – is another excellent tool to create PDF’s freely.
There are few other software which are freely available for download like primopdf, pdf995 and such, but they all come with a catch ! You either need to upgrade them to run have ad-free PDF’s or let the ads run in some corner. If you do not really care about ads you can try one of them. But when you have better opensource solutions, I wonder why anyone would even think about these !!