A lot of people think they need to buy Adobe Acrobat to create PDFs, but it’s not true. There’s software available that will allow you to convert practically anything into simple and compatible PDF. Better yet, you can actually continue using whatever software you want. Read on to learn how to create PDF files.

Create PDF File from Excel, Word or Anything

First thing’s first – get yourself a copy of PDFCreator from http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/ and install it. (Contact me for additional assistance with installing software)

After it’s installed, you may have to restart your computer.

Now PDFCreator’s installed and you (may have) restarted your computer. Next, I want you to think about what you want to convert  to a PDF; remember that it can be practically anything. In fact, anything that you can print – you can convert to a PDF. So go ahead and open the file you want to convert (in the program you usually open it with – so if it’s a Word document, open it in Word; if it’s a web page, open it in your browser.)

Remember how I said “anything you can print – you can convert to a PDF”? Well here’s why. To begin the process of exporting (converting) the PDF version, print the document. In most programs, this is achieved by clicking “File > Print”.

For this tutorial, I’m going to convert the “Disable Windows Media Player Album Art – Turn Off Information Retrieval” tutorial into a PDF.

When the print dialog appears, click the down-arrow next to the printer, and select “PDFCreator” as your printer. You can change any print preferences if you like. Then, when you’re ready, click “Print” (or “Ok”).

The computer will churn for a few seconds, creating your new PDF file.

You’ll be presented with a PDFCreator dialog which will allow you to fill in document attributes – changing these is optional. When you’re happy with these attributes, click “Save”.

Now all you have to do is choose where to save it what name you want to give it.

There’s our PDF file!

If there were any steps you find too difficult, please contact me and I will help you.