How to print just about anything to PDF for free

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

How to print just about anything to PDF for free

by Brad Linder Mar 6th 2007

One of our favorite programs here at Download Squad HQ is Foxit Reader. It's basically a replacement for Adobe Acrobat. Foxit reads PDF files, and that's about it. But boy does it do it well.

Adobe Reader can take 30 seconds or longer to load, and tends to bog down Firefox or Internet Explorer when you want to open a PDF from a web page. Foxit loads in a snap and can handle almost anything Adobe Reader can. But the free version of Foxit won't let you create PDF files.

That's where doPDF steps in. It's one of a number of programs that installs a virtual printer on your machine. Now when you go to print a web page, word document, photo or pretty much anything else, you can save it as a PDF file. You can set the resolution to anything from 72 dpi to 2400 dpi, and the "printed" files are text searchable.

Sure, doPDF's not the only program that performs this function, but much like Foxit, it's free and it just works. Really well.

[via Digital Inspiration]

Tags: acrobate, adobe, dopdf, foxit, pdf

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

ffunky said 2:34PM on 3-06-2007

cutepdf

very stable. Does the same thing.

Daniel Milner said 2:38PM on 3-06-2007

I've always used PDFCreator myself. I like the fact that it's open source.

http://www.pdfforge.org/products/pdfcreator/

harmx said 2:51PM on 3-06-2007

PDFCreator is good, but also check out BullZip PDF Printer for a better interface and the ability to merge pdfs!
http://www.bullzip.com/products/pdf/info.php

Jason said 3:17PM on 3-06-2007

cutepdf.

very stable. Does the same.

Promitheas said 4:49PM on 3-06-2007

PrimoPDF: Excellent piece of software: Does the same job, and it also adds security capabilities to the produced pdf (password to open, option to copy text or not, etc).

MM said 5:15PM on 3-06-2007

chasbow:

you can just copy paste text from PDF to notepad and edit it.

MM said 5:15PM on 3-06-2007

PDFTK (http://www.accesspdf.com/pdftk/) can be used to merge split, crypt, compress etc. It is command line tool but has a gui frontend http://www.paehl.de/pdf/?GUI_for_PDFTK

Fred Thompson said 5:46PM on 3-06-2007

Correction - PDFCreator will do a merge, of sorts. The Wait-Collect button uses PDFCreator's print queue manager to allow creation of a single PDF from multiple files. That's not the same as joining to an existing PDF file in all cases but it is probably a lot more efficient when you want to make one PDF of output from a number of source apps.

Fred Thompson said 5:47PM on 3-06-2007

@jccalhoun,

PDF keeps the formatting information intact, RTF does not. RTF is reformatted to fit the destination device and doesn't have the depth of image support which is in PDF. Most people don't have the ability to edit a PDF so it's a more secure format, so to speak. Take an RTF and a PDF of the same source to a print shop and try to make a poster. Which looks better/proper?

Tom said 6:49PM on 3-06-2007

Your Foxit Reader post links to the comments section of the Download.com listing of the software. The direct link to Foxit is at http://www.foxitsoftware.com/. Direct links FTW!

johntmeche3 said 6:49PM on 3-06-2007

I have an even better way...Get a Mac!

ffunky said 6:50PM on 3-06-2007

Sorry. Didn't mean to have multiple messages. Email comfirmations were lagging...

harmx said 6:50PM on 3-06-2007

PDFCreator works well, but also checkout Bullzip PDF Printer for a better interface and the ability to merge pdf's!

http://www.bullzip.com/products/pdf/info.php

chasbow said 6:52PM on 3-06-2007

I use CutePDF and FoxiT. They are great. Why doesn't someone make an un-pdf. Here's what I mean. We often get request from people who want to edit a PDF or copy a bit out of a PDF. Why couldn't someone make a virtual printer that when one prints to it the output would be a text file? Then one could print a PDF and get text and then do whatever with the text. Is there anything out there like that?

periergos said 6:52PM on 3-06-2007

PrimoPDF. Excellent piece of software: does the same thing, it's free and it adds security issues to the produced pdf (i.e. passwords, option to copy text to clipboard, etc.)

Fred Thompson said 6:52PM on 3-06-2007

BullZip will merge but no, the interface isn't "better" if by "better" the definition is "more functional." PDFCreator supports output to multiple file formats and numerically setting the output resolution. BullZip's interface is clunky. There's no need for 5 tabs given the few actual settings. They'd all fit on one window with a smaller font and less white space.

Merge and other simple editing tasks can be done by PDF-ShellTools http://homepage.oniduo.pt/pdfe/shelltools.html It does have a stupid nag screen. If there's a functional equivalent which with no nags, please share a link to it.

MM said 6:52PM on 3-06-2007

jccalhoun:

How do you convert to RTF ?

jccalhoun said 6:53PM on 3-06-2007

I don't understand why anyone would want to create a pdf. They are incredibly bloated. I'm an RTF fan myself.

Claudiu Spulber said 7:38AM on 3-07-2007

Sure there are ones that have better features, but just so you know doPDF is the only one that doesn't use Ghostscript, so no additional downloads are needed. Pdf printers using ghostscript are more like an interface for ghostscript.

Helmut said 7:39AM on 3-07-2007

Google Docs has also an option to save any doc or rtf as pdf.

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