Be Excellent To Each Other

Hello knowledgeable few,

Mimi would like to know how to make PDF files. Multi page ones, at that.

Mimi needs to submit something in PDF format, but hates PDFs, so has never made one before, and she's to stupid to know if any of the programs she has makes PDFs.

Mimi also has one other crucial question... She asks:

Are the sheets of a multi page PDF always A4?

Thanks for listening, you have been a great audience.

There's usually some function in the Print dialogue in pretty much any word processor software to save most documents as a .pdf and they should automagically default to A4.

If you want full editing functions you need Adobe Acrobat Pro, however.

The easiest method I've found is to have a print driver that 'prints' anything you like into a PDF. Instead of rolling out the printer it pops up a save diaglog and any output is then PDF

I have a couple of these on my work PC, one is from Adobe but there are lots of 3rd party alternatives. A google search will see you right.

It depends software you already have you might already be able to do it but there are also some free PDF writers.

Once installed they appear as a printer on your system and you then have the option to change paper size just as you would if it were an actual printer. Not sure of which is the best of these free tools but I've used CutePDF Writer before and it definitely works.

http://www.cutepdf.com/products/

Beaten when replying to suggest cutepdf and pdf995, but I'll add that PDFs allow different pages to be different sizes/orientations if you want.

Thanks for the info guys.

I'm not sure if I have acrobat on my home Mac, I shall have a check next week, but those PDF print things sound like a good alternative if not.

Got a Mac? There's always a button to just make a pdf instead of printing, you don't need to install any dodgy print drivers or irritating acrobat software.
It works really well too.

Macs have Acrobat built in, I can't remember if you print as PDF or save as PDF.

For windows, pdf995 is my weapon of choice.

For Windows I like Cute PDF. It installs itself as a printer and you just print to it for PDF's.

If you are using Office, and have 2003 or 2007, there's a free plug-in that will just allow you to save your document as a pdf.

I was just about to say . In any Mac application, click File | Print. At the bottom left should be a button for PDF that will allow you to save the file as a PDF. It will go through a sort of print process, internally, first; it is this print process that will set paper size. Yours will likely default to A4.

As others have indicated, this involves some messing around under Windows but is very easy under OS X.

Yes, I don't have a PC, just a couple of Macs - I didn't even think to make sure that there was a version available for mac when people mentioned the print to PDF drivers.

Kalmar - I must have seen that little drop-down button saying 'PDF' literally thousands of times these last few years and yet I have never had a look to see what it does or why it is there, but it is absolutely perfect.

Thanks so much, for the information everyone - I just tried out the button that Kalmar mentions to and it is absolutely perfect, so thanks everyone for their help, and sorry for being such a bobble head. I think my skull if full of jellybeans just posing as a brain, sometimes.

Where has your avatar gone Mimi?

The Bullzip PDF printer thing is easy enough to use too.

I thought this thread was going to be about generating PDFs from websites Probably because that's what I've been learning to do lately so my brain is rather fried now.

Just looking for an excuse to post this really.

I got rid of it when I was feeling fed up

PDFs from websites, DM? About four hundred steps beyond me, methinks

In Safari, click File | Print | PDF. And you're done

Still a few steps beyond me too. Although I'm chuffed with my progress so far - FPDF makes like easier.

Er, yes - you are right! Behold my logic not kicking into play, there.

I wish I could understand why I find long articles easier to read as PDFs than from the web browser.

Hurrah for Macs. PDFs are nasty, horrible things under Windows. Windows just doesn't understand them, and unless you really go hunting for things like Foxit Reader and the GPLd PDFCreator, you're stuck with the abominable bloatware of Acrobat. They work really well on Macs, though, because the OS has really good support built-in, and I find that I actually use them now.

Is it because it breaks it up into pages so you feel that you are more easily able to appreciate the progression of you reading through the article? Very long web articles, where you cant see where they end can sometimes be a bit of a slog.

Ooo... that could be it.

I demand you two get avatars. It looks like you're talking to yourself.

And if you want a quality, lightweight PDF reader which lacks the bells and whistles you never use anyway but loads the pages quickly, download Skim - it's free.

That would require creative thought.