Essential Software Utilities: PDF Creator
Adobe really did create a “portable document format” with PDF, and the free Adobe Reader belongs on every computer. But most of us don’t have a need for the $449 Professional version that allows creation and editing of existing PDF files. Don’t get me wrong, its a fine program that also allows workgroup collaboration, but it is pricey if you only need to create PDF files every now and then.
For occasional use, I like the opensource PDF Creator. It installs as a “printer” in your Windows applications so you can create a PDF file of your Word or Excel document just by using the File * Print menu item, and selecting “PDFCreator” as the printer. It saves the file in PDF format on disk, and then you can print it to a real printer or send it on its way as an attachment. There’s also an option to add it to Internet Explorer to create PDF files from web pages.
It doesn’t allow you to open a PDF and edit it directly like Adobe Reader Professional; but if you have the original source document, you can edit that and then re-create the PDF file. That works fine for most users.
