---
title: "Free PDF Alternatives – Save Yourself $700 and a Headache"
date: 2008-08-05
description: "$( document ).ready(function() { // Handler for .ready() called. $('#toc').toc({ minimumHeaders: 3, listType: 'ul', showSpeed: 0, headers: '#content h2, #content h3, #content h4, #content h5, #content h6' }); /*..."
canonical_url: https://idratherbewriting.com/2008/08/05/free-pdf-alternatives-save-yourself-700-and-a-headache/index.html
---

> For AI agents: a documentation index is available at https://idratherbewriting.com/llms.txt. Markdown versions of all pages are available by appending .md to any page URL.

# Free PDF Alternatives – Save Yourself $700 and a Headache

[Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended](https://store1.adobe.com/cfusion/store/flex/index.cfm?store=OLS-US&storeclient=flex&category=/Applications/AcrobatProExtended&view=ols_prod&nr=0&distributionmethod=FULL) costs $699. The download is several hundred megs, and eventually Adobe pushes out updates that break it right when you need to deliver PDFs for your latest release.

In contrast, you can download the [Save as PDF or XPS add-in for Microsoft Word 2007](http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=4d951911-3e7e-4ae6-b059-a2e79ed87041&displaylang=en) for free. It's less than 1 megabyte to download, and it quickly and flawlessly converts Word docs to PDF, even with hyperlinks. If you have non-Word documents to convert, [Primo PDF](http://www.primopdf.com/) (another free PDF alternative) will do it absolutely free.

[![Save as PDF or XPS](https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/idbwmedia.com/images/saveaspdforxps3.png)](https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/idbwmedia.com/images/2008/08/saveaspdforxps.png)

It's a wonder why people still buy Adobe Acrobat. Granted, you can combine and arrange different PDF files, and annotate PDF documents, but is that really worth hundreds of dollars?