Review of FREE PDF Creation Tools - Save Money with these Free PDF Converter Tools

PDF is one of the most widely used document formats on Internet today. PDF and Adobe are both synonym with each other and the best products to create PDF files are from Adobe itself. But then if you take a look at how much these products from Adobe cost, it will make you think twice. Consider the cost of Acrobat 8 professional which costs USD $449 and Acrobat 8 standard costing USD $299. It depends on what kind of requirement you have and if you are a media publishing company, then most likely you will end up buying on of those two products from Adobe. But what about individuals like us who do not create PDF file from a commercial perspective? Take a look at the free alternative tools to create and convert PDF files to save some money to buy something else.

[PDFCreator] - Based on a GPL license, this tool is open source and absolutely free to use for either personal or commercial use. You can use it just like any other Windows application and convert files of many popular formats such as Excel, Word and RTF to PDF. This tool, in particular, will let you convert files to PDF format via the standard Windows print driver. That means, it will work with any Windows program that can print to a printer. The output from the application will be taken as an input for PDFCreator and then it creates PDF files on the fly. So, if you were to print a file, the way it looks on the paper after printing, will be in the same format it will look in PDF file when created with PDFCreator. The tool is fast and does not require lot of processing power to convert PDF files. Some important features of PDFCreator are:

• Encrypt PDFs such that they can’t be opened or printed.
• Send created PDF files via email.
• Ability to create PNG, JPG, TIFF, BMP, PCX, PS and EPS and not just PDFs.
• Merge multiple PDF files into one.
• Ability to run inside Terminal Servers. [If you run Citrix, this one if for you].

[CutePDF Write] - A free version of this tool, installs itself as a printer subsystem to let you use it from any Windows application that can print. Similar to PDFCreator, this application takes input from any windows application that can print and outputs a PDF file. You will have to download a companion software - CutePDF Write Companion, to be able to do the following:

• Merge multiple PDF files into one PDF file.
• Encrypt the PDF files.
• Add and modify the Title, Author, Subject and keywords for the PDF file.
• Reorder and Extract duplicate pages.
• Rotate and Crop PDF pages.
• Resize the pages.
• Add Headers and Footers with Data, Time, Page Numbers, Bates Number, etc.
• Apply the Pre-saved Settings in one click.

Note: The CuteFTP Write Companion software is bundled with WhenU Save. Your Anti-Virus/Anti-Spyware software may report the installation to be containing a Spyware. Take appropriate action when prompted. If you are concerned about your privacy, we suggest that you try other free products.

[Pdf995] - Another free product, but displays sponsor Ads in your web browser, every time you run it. Being an Adware, it’s annoying to see Ads showing up everytime you use it but then it’s free. This products has maximum number of features when compared to any other product on this page. For a detailed list of its features, visit their website. Again, this software too supports PDF creation from any windows application that can print to a printer. The major negative point about this product is it being an Adware.

[Go2PDF] - It’s another freeware, enables you to convert documents to a PDF format file using a print driver like other free tools do. The features are same as other softwares covered on this page but this software can convert Access and AutoCAD documents into PDF files as well. Something that’s not possible with other free softwares we have covered on this page. [Note: I did not try converting Access and AutoCAD documents because I don't use any of those two softwares on my systems. If you happen to try, please do let us know.]

[PrimoPDF] - This product does the same things what other products do as well, that is convert documents to PDF files using a PDF print driver. It supports encryption, add/modify of header information, graphics conversion to PDF. The output from this tool is very nice and better than some other tools listed out on this page.

[PDF Online] - A free online tool for those who do not create PDF files very often. The free service converts files of many popular formats such as MS Word, RTF, PPT, PPS, HTML, TXT, MHT and Excel. Supported image formats are PNG, GIF, JPG, TIFF, BMP, EMF and WMF. Very useful for people who do not have a system and are in urgent need of converting files to PDF.

[Conclusion]: PDFCreator and PrimoPDF are the two clear winners in the softwares that we reviewed. They emerged as Winners primarily for their easy to use interface, features, better output than other tools and ability to run on servers. For home users we recommend either of these two tools, but for office use, we recommend PDFCreator which works from within Terminal Server softwares like Microsoft Terminal Server and Citrix.