Hello, I need a software for Windows that can create PDF files from other documents.. I don't need editing capabilities, so a simple solution that can handle conversion of many documents daily would be great; something like a virtual printer driver that creates PDFs, or some tool that I can point the file and it would create the PDF. I tried a few free ones but they all have some annoying limitations or nags, a commercial product would be acceptable as long as is not very expensive ( under $100 )... Any recommendations?
PDF Creator Print to PDF. No nags that I can see, and I haven't noticed any real limitations. (I have uninstalled things like CutePDF to install PDF Creator, so it does stand above other freeware apps IMO. Plus it is completely open source and seems to be fairly active, so expect new versions throughout the years.) If you like it and it meets all of your needs, feel free to pay $25 or $50 for it so the developers feel encouraged. (Considering it may keep you from having to spend $100 on an alternative product.)
I use the Jaws PDF Creator, not free for the latest version (£33) but older fully-working versions have been free on magazines. There's a free trial d/l but it watermarks each page until you buy. It appears as a choice of printer in any application (with an extra shortcut macro in Word) but doesn't seem very good on batch jobs - it always opens the associated program (eg Word for .doc files) for each file and closes it after each.
Even when I use Acrobat itself to do a whole batch of files, it opens and closes them individually. But then again, it's version 6. I have no idea how the newer versions work. I do use PDFCreator, as mentioned above, and I think it's great. I no longer print receipts physically, I just send them to PDF and slap 'em in a folder for easy reference as needed. Just the program I was looking for after filling up two file boxes!
If you're in the UK, eXPert PDF3 Pro is a fully-working freebie on the latest (February) Computer Shopper, looks to be very much same as the Jaws features list. Latest version PDF4 Pro is 69 euros.
Thank you very much for your helpful suggestions! I haven't used OpenOffice and Jaws, but I've used the others and they had some limitations or things that I didn't like. For example, CutePDF needs Ghostscript or something like that and PDFcreator hasn't done any updates since August. After a couple of searches, I found PDF Factory Pro ( pdffactory.com ) and PDF Writer Pro ( http://www.amicutilities.com/pdf-writer/ ) which look very good.. the first one looks like a very popular software and the other has very good compression for the same quality.. I will take a look at OpenOffice and Jaws, and then make a decission. Thank you!
