PDF Writers -which one?

[TSH-SR]

Hi everyone,
I am having a few problems emailing quotes to customers in the last 2 months that they cannot read. My quotes are getting involved, with drawings, photos, text and soon colour selections.
3 years ago? I tried one of the free or cheap PDF writers without much success.
Do I splash out on the Adobe product or is there something else that anyone can suggest that is very good, yet easy enough to use.

Thanks - Tony

[ray_223]

I use PDFCreator from http://www.pdfforge.org/

I don't use it every day but each time I have used it, it has worked without problem.

What problems did customers report?

[Heidi Price]

We have been quite happy with the free version of PDF995.
There is a sponsor add during the conversion process BUT clients NEVER see it - only us

It's as easy as create the doc in word and then print - making sure you choose PDF995 from the printer list. Easy as!

Have a look at it: http://www.pdf995.com/download.html

May not be what you are looking for, but worth a sqiz at.


Heidi

[TSH-SR]

Hi Ray, thanks for the info.
The customers are saying that the drawings of screen doors in the E-mail quote (OE) are not lining up with the relevant part of the quote, There are also some other page/paragraph layout problems as well.
If I send the quote as a word attachment lots of people can't open that properly or at all. Yet I send them to myself as well and it is all OK.

PDF would (should) overcome all these issues I beleive.

Regards Tony

[KarenC]

Dear Tony, as a designer I use Adobe Acrobat Pro 9 (part of the Adobe CS4 suites).
I would like to check your current PDF for you before you decide to purchase anything.
Can you please email to karen (at) unicorngraphics.com.au with your contact details and I'll get back to you asap. - Karen

[competitions]

Star Office (and Open Office) have Export as PDF functionality as standard.

This means you could create the document, text and images etc. in one document then Export it as a PDF from the one application, without any additional learning curves.

Being open source, it's also free. I prefer it to Micro$oft Office as it has many other options (including saving as Word file for those stuck on Bill's products).

[Jexley]

I stumbled across Primo PDF sometime last year and it's a dream for small stuff, Word Docs, Excel and such. May not go for bigger, more extravagant jobs, but it works for li'l ol' me.

[LeelaCosgrove]

I have a Mac so all the PDF stuff is all built in. I simply hit print, save as pdf.

I know that doesn't help.

I'm just gloating ...

I have a Mac ... :P

[KarenC]

Tony - please see my post above about sending me your pdf to check.

Many of the pdf makers that are inbuilt or otherwise do not embed fonts. There are also very strict specs required for commercial print to adhere to if preparing for print. Web pdfs rely on the installed fonts on the reader's computer and although they list the fonts used, do not embed them.

I would like to check your pdf before commenting more on them.
Cheers.

[Sally McIntyre]

Tony - just a couple of things to consider. You may be using a different version of Word to your customer, i.e. if you are using Word 07 and they are using an earlier version and you haven't saved it as a Word 03 doc they will have difficulty opening.

Inserting images into tables and text boxes in Word can be a good way to stop them moving on the page (it's look better if you don't show the borders of the table or box)

I use the Professional version of Nitro PDF and from memory it was under $200and I haven't had any issues yet.

Just a couple of thoughts!
thanks, Sally