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Geek Culture / Any good "Free" .PDF creators?

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zenassem
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Joined: 10th Mar 2003
Location: Long Island, NY
Posted: 27th Apr 2007 15:10 Edited at: 27th Apr 2007 18:26
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I would like to convert some on-line manuals eg.(Anim8or, DBpro) to .PDF as it's easier for me to browse through them, and move to the areas I need.

I have Acrobat 6.5 @ work, but I'll be out of the office for a while. (Knew I should have admin installed it on the Network)

So I'm looking for a free .pdf creator, that someone has used, or at least has heard is good second hand.

Thanks
~Zenassem

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Zappo
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Posted: 27th Apr 2007 15:25 Edited at: 27th Apr 2007 15:27
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If its for personal use [edit: just read its free for commercial use too!], I recommend the free version of CutePDF Writer: http://www.cutepdf.com
Its not as fast as the real Adobe PDF creator (none of the free ones are) but it does a good job and I haven't had anything its failed on yet. It works in exactly the same way, just acts as a printer.
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Oraculaca
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Posted: 27th Apr 2007 17:04
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Open Office lets you export PDF's , assuming you can open your files in it in the first place.

No.Art.Here
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Phaelax
DBPro Master
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Location: Metropia
Posted: 27th Apr 2007 17:26
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Funny you ask, because I just converted a couple documents to pdf last night. Here's what I used and it did a pretty good job.

[href]www.doc2pdf.net[/href]


There's also this one.
http://www.novapdf.com


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zenassem
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Posted: 27th Apr 2007 19:08
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Thanks everyone. I will try out each of them. Much appreciated!!!

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NeX the Fairly Fast Ferret
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Posted: 27th Apr 2007 21:53
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Or, don't bother with PDF at all. The rendering lag is N-A-S-T-Y.


Since the other one was scaring you guys so much...
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Phaelax
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Posted: 27th Apr 2007 22:57
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Quote: "Or, don't bother with PDF at all. The rendering lag is N-A-S-T-Y."


Some people like PDF for whatever reason, so converting documents is a simple convenience to cater to those people. But many of my online classes use PDF books with DRM. Talk about slow and annoying.


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NeX the Fairly Fast Ferret
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Posted: 27th Apr 2007 23:12
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Hmm. I don't know why Adobe don't clear this up. I mean, I can't be bothered to read a document if it takes a second or more to render it each time I use the scroll wheel. They're using some really dodgy methods of drawing; it draws each item one by one. Why not scan the whole page and work out a pixel at a time?


Since the other one was scaring you guys so much...
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zenassem
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Posted: 27th Apr 2007 23:17 Edited at: 27th Apr 2007 23:18
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So far I used CutePDF. (Works real good)

I hear what your saying Nex & Phaelax but I think it makes sense in my situation.


For instance, trying to read the web help in a program get's annoying. Other times people put good tutorials on the web, but I'd rather read it in PDF format. It keeps all my manuals neat.

Here's an example.

This tutorial is how to convert 3DS to .X for use in DB

Now all I did, is went to that link and Clicked File->Print Preview
and then Print.

and attached is the result.

Here's a screenshot of it converted.



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Zappo
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Posted: 28th Apr 2007 17:44
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The PDF (acrobat) format has some big advantages. For a start off, there are viewers available for just about every platform making it a very Portable Document Format (see what I did there?). What you see on the screen is exactly what you see if you print it, no matter what printer you use. For professional documents and manuals that you want to deliver in a digital format, thats a necessity.
The reason for its slow rendering is because its very similar to PostScript (also owned by Adobe) where everything is stored as vector coordinates. If you design your pages and vector artwork well in the first place it can be pretty quick at rendering. Saldy, a lot of people build up their vector art using lots of overlapping layers which is slow.
I would also recommend using an older version of the Adobe Acrobat Reader as they tend to be much quicker. Recent versions seem to get more and more bloated and slow, leaving things running in the background slowing down everything else too. Not good. Most people won't have a need for the additional features the newest versions provide anyway, so stick to version 6 (or even 5 if you can).
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Shadow heart
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Posted: 29th Apr 2007 07:15 Edited at: 29th Apr 2007 07:18
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free no, but I am familiar with Publisher Pro. It's great and would consider buying it, scratch that, DEFINETLY consider buying it. It's perfect for graphics, banners, and websites. You can make a web page (without any programming but with no additional features unless using the optional HTML Feature) with high graphics. You can design a document with high graphic quality, etc then just simply convert it to .pdf. withen the softare That's how I make all my manuals and tutorials.

to the ones thats trapped inside of you, this is it!!
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Phaelax
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Posted: 29th Apr 2007 07:32
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Quote: "I would also recommend using an older version of the Adobe Acrobat Reader as they tend to be much quicker."


I know that's true for a fact. I was using 5.0 and thought that was just incredibly slow. I had to upgrade to 8.0 so that I could open my stupid DRM school book and wow did it get even slower! The concept of PDF is great, but Adobe has failed its presentation and support for as long as I can remember. However, the pdf viewer on the Mac (which was not developed by Adobe) is much quicker.

I recently put all my DB tutorials on my website. They were all either Doc or Rtf format. Figuring some people might want PDF or just not able to view Doc files, I used that website I posted to convert them all and post both files.


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Lost in Thought
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Posted: 29th Apr 2007 09:18
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There isn't much render lag here when opening pdf's saved to my hard drive. However web viewed documents lag wicked bad. Thanks for the link to CutePDF

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indi
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Posted: 29th Apr 2007 10:50
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unless your OS has PDF elements native to its core technologies
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/pdf/

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Phaelax
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Posted: 29th Apr 2007 11:09
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I guess that explains it. Just one more reason why Macs are better!


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indi
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Posted: 29th Apr 2007 12:38
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Open Office would be a good solution for a zero budget windows pdf creation and export experience.

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