by Shawn Schafer

Created on: December 12, 2008

The main reason you would want to save something in pdf format is so that it isn't tampered with, that is, that somebody doesn't change what you wrote. Pdfs are also a very convenient format when you're reading something; it feels more like a book...except that its still a searchable and 'copy paste-able' book. Additionally, Word is not a program that everyone has due to its high cost, but Acrobat Reader(the software used to read pdfs) is a program that comes standard with most newer PCs and can be downloaded for free.

Now, one way to go about doing this with Microsoft Word 2007 is downloading the Microsoft Add-in that lets you save documents as pdfs. Do do this, got to this link and follow the instructions on that page. Once you have followed the page's instructions, you should just be able to 'save as' pdf. Why Microsoft didn't include this functionality as a standard feature of Word 2007 is beyond me but that discussion is for a whole other type of article.

Now, you might be saying "What if I don't own Microsoft Word?" Well, never fear because neither do I. I personally cannot justify spending over a hundred dollars on Microsoft Office. In fact, I couldn't justify spending 50 dollars on it! Especially not when you can get a free clone of office that I would actually argue is better than Office. I am talking about a program called Open Office. You can get it here. In the writer portion of this program its simply a one click button(it actually has a little pdf icon) on the default interface to convert a Word file into a pdf.

If you don't feel like downloading Openoffice.org then there are a slew of other third party programs out there made specifically for converting word documents to pdfs; just google it. If you're converting simple word files into pdfs; don't get one of the third party programs you have to pay for, find a free one.

If you commonly need to convert complex word files and you find that there tend to be compatibility issues with some of the files you try to convert, then you might want to consider investing in Adobe Acrobat. This program is made specifically by Adobe to make pdfs and should resolve most if not all compatibility issues. But if you're just converting plain and simple text to pdf format, it probably isn't worthwhile to buy Adobe Acrobat, considering its relatively high cost. In fact I wouldn't recommend purchasing Adobe Acrobat unless you specifically run into problems and you can't manage to solve them by any of the means mentioned above.

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