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How To Create PDF Without Software
Portable Document Format (PDF) is the standard file format for the distribution of electronic documents and forms around the world. An article made to Digg's frontpage yesterday leading me to ponder why doPDF, a virtual printer driver to save files as PDF, was promoted over it's open source alternative PDFCreator. The latter is also free, more stable and best of all - it's rid of all advertisement/trojan/virus..etc.What really bugs me is that not only it was "dugg", but it was also blogged about in top places like Download Squad, Digital Inspiration, and Lifehacker just to name a few. Come on now, did you get paid or something? As a reader of these blogs, I respect and trust their knowledge but I was surprised to see none of them mentioned the open source software in the posts. Moreover, if your aim is "to print a web page, word document, photo or pretty much anything else" and save it as a PDF file, you don't even need to download anything.
PDF Sans Software
There are two methods to create PDF files online. Each method is followed by a list of available free services, first choices being the best based on extensive testing and personal experience.
1. Convert: Upload the document from your computer and the PDF is sent to your email address within a couple of minutes.
- Express PDF (DOC, RTF, XLS, HTML files and URL - max. 20MB size)
- PDF Online (DOC, RTF, XLS, MHT, TXT, PPT, PPS, PUB, JPG, PNG, BMP, TIFF, WMF, EMF, GIF files - max. 2MB size)
- PDF Convert (65 file types supported, unlimited file size but max. 7 files per month. Also converts PDF to DOC or XLS)
2. Generate: Enter the address of the website and download the PDF instantly. No email address is required.
- PDF-o-Matic (URL, unlimited file size?)
- HTML To PDF (URL, unlimited file size?)
- HTML 2 PDF (URL, unlimited file size? Adds a watermark ad)
Productivity Tip: For the second method, you could save even more time by using the Add to Searchbar extension for Firefox and generating PDFs of the website you want to "print" directly from the search box.
Simple, huh? It is also easier for PC users than buying a new computer (e.g. Mac), installing a new operating system (e.g. Linux), or downloading a new set of software (e.g. OpenOffice).
Enjoy!
Trying to convert pdf to word documents? Visit this pdf converter site today!
21 thoughts:
I use a software sort of like what you are saying called deskPDF.
http://www.docudesk.com/desk_pdf_standard_features.shtml
It works wonderful. You just print anything you want to be a PDF and select deskPDF as the printer instead of a real printer. It asks you what you want to name it and saves it on your desktop.
A great piece of software which isn't really software more like a driver that I use almost daily.
Again, a very good post ilker yoldas ;) Why don't we just digg this post :D
http://digg.com/software/How_To_Create_PDF_Without_Software/
have you tried Zamzar.com?
Sellsius: Oh, yes.. there was Zamzar as well for the conversion method. Thanks for reminding me that. I'm checking it now:
- There are loads of file types that can be converted including Audio and Video. See full list.
- Maximum file size: 200MB
- Quick test: I uploaded a DOC file and wanted to receive as PDF in my inbox but I got it converted as HTML in a ZIP file. Maybe there was a problem so I need to make further tests with this later.
Someone just emailed me this bLaugh (aka Official Comic of the Blogosophere) - Huge Software Sale. Although, it is not about open/closed software but seems to be relevant here (in case of Adobe users) for free/paid software.
Great stuff, Ilker. I'm linking to this article in my review of your site and I'm also checking out the PDF software. I can really use it on my Windows PCs.
There's also Primopdf, found at their website, which creates pdf by printing to it and then saving it as pdf.
Ilker:
now.. this is the kind of info that really helps... I've been looking for something like this awhile now... tx again.
There are modules available now which you can add to your google homepage or netvibes and others and give a url or upload documents and convert them to pdf (they email you the pdf file)
Guess that should read: This post has been removed by your stalker!
Interesting, Ilker.
I just emailed my friend your post.
Yesterday I emailed her my post again called Create Your Own e-Book for Free, wherein I used the BCL easy PDF printer driver.
But maybe I'll try the ways you've mentioned and see what's what.
By the way, Some guy named Billy Warhol over on BlogPaul.com is begging Paul to hook him up with you!
Tee hee hee...
@Paula: Thanks for the spam! :P You are probably the only person I allow to submit comments with links because you have been actively commenting on almost every single post on my blog ever since you joined my community.
Yeah, I read your post and Paul's post before. That Billy character is being naughty these days! ;)
useful indeed! now I'm looking forward to the ODF (open document format).
this post gets another digg from me - good stuff.
This is an interesting and important post, thanks for pushing back!
If you use Open Office you don't need the PDF driver. Open Office's software creates PDF files automatically when you want them.
I have a somewhat lengthy discussion of OpenSource software here:
http://gregladen.com/wordpress/?p=33
for teachers, but for the squeamish in general (sorry teachers ... but you'all are usually pretty squeamish about software, admit it!
Ilker, Great post. It really has a lot of information that I need. I've just finished writing my first book (a new how to quit smoking method that really works), which I am going to market both as an ebook and as a publish on demand. I used primopdf and was satisfied with it. The only problem was that it did not preserve my links once I translated the thing into a .pdf file. I'll check out your suggestions to see if any of them do. Again, Thanks!
"Come on now, did you get paid or something?" - don't you think it's a little exagerated?
And if you look through the comments of the story on Digg (or DS/Lifehacker) you'll see that PDFCreator is mentioned, along with many others.
doPDF doesn't have as many features as PDFCreator for instance, but it's the only free one not using Ghostscript. I'm mentioning this not only because you don't have to install additional software, but also because it's not very difficult to create a ghostscript printer (http://www.stat.tamu.edu/~henrik/GSPSprinter/GSPSprinter.html).
And even PDFCreator displays advertisements on their website, not to mention primopdf/cutepdf..., you even mention one online pdf converter that adds a watermark to the pdf.
My point is that's a matter of choice, if you're not looking for all the fancy features of PDFCreator, and you're not online all the time (to use the online converters), a solution like doPDF comes handy.
P.S. I work for the company that developed doPDF.
Thank you for the info ilker. Open source is awesome. I just wish I could remember to use it more. Would save me tons on money as I don't save any with Geico. ;)
Just us docs.google.com, create a new document and save to PDF
Another software that does it is Go 2 PDF, but open source is really cool.
Another variation of PDFCreator is the McBurrz pdf creator suite which uses PDFCreator and is accompanied by many tutorials to help users create, merge, and perform other techniques with PDFs.
What do you think? Post your thoughts..