free pdf creator and converter?

[hellie]

Does anyone know a good free programme to create pdf documents? Also I occassionally have faxes sent through the free www.pumafax.com does anyone know a free converter from tiff to pdf. Also a free converter for microsoft documents to pdf.

I don't use this enough to warrant paying for it.

Helen

[Adrian Bell]

http://www.openoffice.org/ will open Word and Excel documents and convert them to pdf. It is a full office suite however and a large download.

http://www.cutepdf.com/ looks promising and gets good reviews, though I've not tried it myself. It claims to create pdf's from almost any printable document.

[hadaso]

I use CutePDF and it's great. It creates a virtual printer and then when you print to that printer a PDF file is created and you are prompted for a filename (actually you just get a "save as..." dialog to save the created PDF file). So to convert a tiff file you just have to print it from any graphics application (or fax viewer).

BTW another use for CutePDF is to save toner+paper: I set it as my default printer, so if I accidentally click "print" it doesn't start printing with real paper and toner. It just opens a dialog to save the PDF (a virtual fax can work the same. Only with CutePDF openning I sometimes realize that I don't have to print. I can just save the PDF, and if I need a hardcopy I can print later).

[msulloway]

Elfima Notepad is a very simple program for creating PDF's.
http://www.elfima.com/

[btn]

PDF creation is built into Mac OS X, and is available to all Mac OS X applications.

[nomad]

CutePDF works well although some pdfs couldn't be opened by Acrobat Reader (happened very rarely though!)! An alternative is http://www.primopdf.com/

If you want to merge several pdfs into one file I found this utility
http://www.accesspdf.com/pdftk/

[kander]

PDFCreator is an open source (read: free) alternative to CutePDF. I use it all the time, and have had no problems with it.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator

--K

[hellie]

Thanks everyone I have tried them all my problem is now solved. I also came across www.spaceblue.com/pdfblender. It is very simple to merge pdf documents.

Helen

[silasm0]

Cute PDF is good. But a person must install another piece of software before installing the cute thing.

[anj]

I use PrimoPDF. It has worked well for me on several documents ranging from pictures to long texts.

[metal]

Try http://www.pdf995.com

[nomad]

Originally posted by metal
Try http://www.pdf995.com

Works very well, more features than the other programs ( a whole suite), but annoying pop-ups everytime you produce a pdf - maybe the best pay-alternative. Among the free programs I prefer PrimoPDF or CutePDF.

Another alternative, a word processor with PDF-export - alternative to Open Office - is Tomahawk PDF: http://www.softpedia.com/get/Office-...hawk-PDF.shtml

[hadaso]

Originally posted by kander
PDFCreator is an open source (read: free) alternative to CutePDF. I use it all the time, and have had no problems with it.

Normally I prefer an open source solution when one is available, but with PDFcreator I had strange behaviour under WinXP set with multiple user accounts (I don't remember exactly what. I think it was saving the files created by one user under another user's folder or something like that).