PDF software

Discussion

10 replies

Posted by Larry Reitz on May 14, 2009 at 11:26 AM

I'm looking for recommendations for software to create PDF's. Does anyone have any experience with Smith Micro's product? It appears to do what I want and at about $80 the price is reasonable. However, there is no way one can tell from the ads whether it is easy to use etc.

Thanks in advance.
Larry

Posted by Carson Wilcox on May 14, 2009 at 12:33 PM

Have you taken a look at OpenOffice, it is an open source product now owned by Sun Microsystems.
It is able to save documents in PDF format, you can't edit PDF files directly but you can create them.

Posted by Larry Reitz on May 14, 2009 at 12:55 PM

Thanks, Carson. I'll have a look. I was hoping to get something that could be edited, but, maybe that's too expensive.
Larry

Posted by JimClark on May 14, 2009 at 1:43 PM

Check this out also it installs as a printer so if you want to make a pdf from any program you simply choose print and choose it as the printer

http://www.dopdf.com/

Posted by Larry Reitz on May 14, 2009 at 1:56 PM

Thanks Jim
Larry

Posted by Fred Stearns on May 14, 2009 at 10:28 PM

Cute PDF has both a free and a for sale PDF printer. The free CutePDF is great for creating a file you don't want changed. I think that you can edit the one they charge for, $49.95.

There are many other as well.

http://cutepdf.com/

Posted by Linnet Long on May 15, 2009 at 2:34 AM

If you decide you want to go Adobe, you can also buy a copy of Adobe 6.0 Standard (Amazon.com Marketplace) - should be able to get it for about $50. Then, there's an upgrade special to Adobe Acrobat Pro 9.0 for $159 - at the Adobe website, until end of May. It's a more expensive route than $30-100 for various configurations of creators and editors--but Acrobat Pro for a little over $200 is a pretty good deal. I tried a couple other options and finally went the Adobe route.

Posted by Rosemarie Arbur on May 15, 2009 at 4:30 AM

My only relevant experience has been with the free Foxit Reader over a few years; they have a version that edits, creates, etc., that you pay for, and from how the free version works (how to put notes in the text, etc.) I'd suggest checking it out.

Posted by Paul DeCesare on May 15, 2009 at 12:02 PM

If you just want to create PDFs from documents, I've used the free PDFCreator for two years now, with no problems. Even works on Vista.

Or, to edit PDFs, this one does the job. It's free to try, and costs $19.99 if you like what you see. I haven't tried it, but it is the top pick on C/Net's download.com which is a good thing.

Posted by Paul DeCesare on May 15, 2009 at 9:16 PM

Larry, I just came across this on sale at Amazon... great price!

Posted by Larry Reitz on May 15, 2009 at 10:08 PM

Thanks so much for all the suggestions. I think I'm going to give Paul's first suggestion a try. For $20 it can't hurt the checking account too bad. If the project I have in mind works out it may be worth going the full Adobe route in the future and if it doesn't -- not much lost. I really appreciate the feedback.

Larry