Printing PDFs…
You’ve probably seen PDFs everywhere you go on the internet these days. They are very popular and with good reason. But did you ever wonder how people make PDFs? We’ll cover a bunch of information related to PDFs and by the end, you’ll be a professional PDFer.
PDF basics
PDF stands for Portable Document Format. What that means is that anyone can open the document on any computer with PDF reader and the document will look the same as it was when it was created. This makes it very convenient for documents that need to maintain consistent formatting and layout.
This is in contrast to a Microsoft Word document which can be modified by anyone with Word and can also look different if opened with Word XP vs. Word 2007. Allowing the end user of your document to modify it can be a bad thing if you are an entity like the IRS. Allowing people to change the layout of their tax forms could get very confusing very quickly.
Some things you might want to do with a PDF is add a note to it, put a circle around important information, or put a watermark that says “Draft”. If you use a free PDF reader like PDF X-Change, you can do these things. A tax accountant might want to send a Form 1040 to his client with a sticky note telling them to fill out the top portion.
Another common task would be to turn things like a web page or a Word document into a PDF document. This is extra convenient when you want to print an online coupon but aren’t near your printer. You can simply print the coupon as a PDF and then when you have your printer handy, you can print the PDF.
My favorite PDF printing utility is called PDFCreator. After it is installed, it simply shows up as a printer when you click the print button.
Next, you will be prompted to add information like the author (you), a title (name of the document), and keywords (document descriptions). Finally, you choose a file name and save the document. It will open with your PDF viewer so you can see the final output.
Advanced PDFs
Both of the tools in the previous section were free tools that anyone can download. There are other, more advanced tools out there for PDF creation and manipulation. However, you pay for the privilege.
By far, the most popular is Adobe Acrobat. With Acrobat, you can merge multiple PDFs into one document, add security features such as a password to open it, and create fillable forms for entering information (example).
Most of these features are going to be beyond the scope of most users needs and budget (Acrobat costs $299).
Your PDFs
PDFs are great for archiving information such as tax documents, online purchase confirmations, and instruction manuals. You never have to worry about having the right version of a program to view them and nobody can open them and delete information.
If you need some help getting started with PDFs, feel free to contact The Digitante. I can help you with everything from learning to print them to setting up a system to keep all your information organized.
Additionally, if you have any favorite PDF tips or tricks, feel free to leave them in the comments!
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