Comments on: Free PDF Alternatives — Save Yourself $700 and a Headache

By: Teri

Teri — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 17:02:40 +0000

There’s always cutepdf writer, too. Free, used at the company I work for (who doesn’t believe in Open Office ). With cutepdf writer, you “print” to access the pdf creation option. Has worked very well for us for quite awhile now and so far, no trojans.

By: James - HostGator Review

James - HostGator Review — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 23:20:45 +0000

Thanks for this Tom! I was not aware of this and you saved me several hundred bucks as a result.

James – HostGator Reviews last blog post..HostGator Support FAQ’s

By: James Behnke

James Behnke — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 10:08:42 +0000

On the Mac side…PDFClerk by SintraWorks.

http://sintraworks.com/

Can combine and edit PDF’s, but cannot create forms as Adobe Acrobat can.

By: Tame Your Technology

Tame Your Technology — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 15:37:36 +0000

I have used Open Office for some years now and it comes with a PDF creator built in that is super-simple to use. With some of the other options I have found hyperlinks are often not converted properly but have never had this problem with Open Office – best of all, it’s free

By: Free eBooks

Free eBooks — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 18:26:54 +0000

Had been finding this piece of software. I tried downloading another Adobe Acrobat 9 via other sources, guess what, all softwares nowadays have trojan horses in it. Really thanks for the info on this software, appreciated it!

Free eBookss last blog post..Olympic Games – Beijing 2008 Olympic Games Live

By: jay m

jay m — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 17:14:04 +0000

It’s really silly to compare freebies with Adobe’s top of the line.
No, the freebies don’t make bookmarks.
Yes, there are freebies and cheapies to do the basics.
OpenOffice.org’s suite creates PDFs from its own files.
Writer will make bookmarks for the TOC and cross-refs.
It doesn’t want to make links for Tables of Figures and other automatic lists.
Note that Acrobat 3D 8.x and the high-end Acro 9 allow you to lots more things with PDFs- embed native files as well as concatenate PDFs.
You can also embed 3D models in a PDF so that Reader 8 (or later) can view them as 3D.
Really cool. Rotate the model, zoom and pan, excellent for giving a close look at complex items.
Think online reference for a machine?

By: Eva G.

Eva G. — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 00:04:17 +0000

Primo PDF is a great product for creating PDFs, but if you need to convert FROM a PDF or create forms you can fill out, that’s pretty much an Adobe thing, which is lame. Oh well, something free will pop up one day.

Eva G.s last blog post..Book Review: Slaughterhouse 5

By: Char James-Tanny

Char James-Tanny — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 12:09:20 +0000

When you select Word’s Save As PDF, the dialog box lets you select Standard (print or online) or Minimum Size (online only). There’s also an Options button that lets you select:

- Page range
- Create bookmarks using headings or Word bookmarks
- If you want to include document properties
- If you want to include accessibility tags
- If the PDF should be IS0 19005-1 compliant (PDF/A)
- If text should be bitmapped when fonts are not embedded

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 07:00:18 +0000

One problem with Acrobat is that it’s bundled with the Creative Suite. Yet my copy of the Creative Suite includes only Acrobat 8.01, the edition that was released before Word 2007 was released. So it won’t convert Word 2007 files.

I thought Help > Check for Updates would automatically install the Acrobat patch I needed, but alas, it did not. After registering the .dll, and ensuring the .COM add-in was enabled, I finally found a link to the 8.1 patch which, after installing, finally converted Word 2007 documents.

I like other Adobe products (e.g., Photoshop, Dreamweaver, InDesign), but I think Acrobat stands alone in the number of issues and errors it has. I remember a person in support once mentioned they get more calls about Acrobat than anything else, or that they were the most difficult to resolve (can’t remember). What’s scary is that the Acrobat install files keep getting bigger and bigger.

Another problem with bundling Acrobat in a suite is that the upgrade path isn’t clear. Acrobat is up to version 9, but do I get that upgrade if Acrobat is in my suite? I don’t think so.

I am no longer accepting Adobe’s weekly update pushes. Anyway, enough ranting about Acrobat. All the installing and uninstalling of suites (Tech Comm and Creative) and Acrobat installs actually blew out my hard drive this morning. Maybe I had a bad sector to start with, but never interrupt an Adobe install.

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 06:52:49 +0000

@Char, thanks for the note about images sometimes not showing up. I’ve seen similar things, although I couldn’t remember if I was using Adobe or the plugin, or if it was related to something else. I’ll watch out for it in the future.

@Hamish, thanks for the tip about the add-in. I had no idea it existed. Will definitely check it out.

@Jessica, yes, to create fillable forms, Adobe’s big bucks app is the only one that will do it.

@Lindsey, one benefit of the suite is that it includes Adobe Acrobat. I think Adobe is adding Acrobat into every suite because it probably doesn’t sell so well alone. Yet it seems to add a lot of value in a suite.

@Noel, I’m not sure about the bookmarks.

@Michael, good point about paying extra money to ensure quality. I think there is a difference in image quality between Acrobat and PrimoPDF. At least for images that have been resized.

@M Callen, I know I picked the most expensive version of Acrobat. I was trying to make a point, I guess.

@Troy, thanks for the tip about PDF Fill.