Best Free PDF Writer
All of the PDF writers in this review are programs that function by creating a pseudo printer on your system. When you want to create a PDF document from pretty much any application you just choose to print it to the PDF printer and it creates a PDF document. The thing that distinguishes one product from another is the number of options and flexibility available. The one problem with this approach is that you need to have a program that will open the file on your system. If someone sends you a file created with a program you do not have and you can't open the file then you can't print it and if you can't print it then you can't convert it to a pdf using a pseudo printer technique. The two online products do not suffer from this problem but are limited only by the file formats recognized by the online vendor.
After eliminating those PDF Writers suggested by readers that were not free, were limited time trials, and basically adware (the product was free but forced the user to endure various ads as a punishment for using it), there were only six candidates left. These were (alphabetically) Bullzip PDF Writer, CutePDF, doPDF, PDFCreator, PrimoPDF, and TinyPDF. Which one of these is best? That really depends on the options you need. While I have recommended PDFCreator in the past, I have now moved to Bullzip PDF Writer as my personal favorite. It has more of the options I need and has worked flawless for me. A problem with Bullzip is that the pdf file created may not be searchable. While it created a searchable pdf from word processing programs it did not from other programs like Excel. All the other candidates produced a searchable document from Excel and other non-word-processing software.
Key features of Bullzip include:
The ability to password protect your pdf files (only PrimoPDF and PDFCreator also had this ability)
The ability use either 40 or 128 bit encryption on the file (only PDFCreator also had this ability)
The ability to add a watermark (PDF Creator had a limited ability to add watermarks)
The ability to append or prepend files (PrimoPDF and PDFCreator also had this ability)
The ability to choose different levels of output quality (All but CutePDF and TinyPDF had this ability)
The ability to add/change metadata (PrimoPDF and PDFCreator also had this ability)
PDFCreator is still my second choice and has all the features of Bullzip with the exception of a 64 bit version and more limited watermark abilities. The help files are available only in English, French and German. However it does have one unique feature among these products. It comes with both a standalone install and a server install. In a company setting this gives you the ability to install the printer driver on a server and make it available to all the workstations on the network without doing an install on each one of them. This may make it a preferred choice in business situations if you don't need the other options that products like Bullzip offer. The only item PDF Creator failed at was printing a web page to pdf. I was unable to get consistent output and generally the program produced an error and exited. This can be a major issue for many users.
Among the very basic pdf Writers are CutePDF Writer and TinyPDF. These both provide only the most minimal functions and create the pdf file with no options for password, encryption, metadata, or most other optional functions. On the other hand, they are among the smallest of the downloads.
doPDF is comparable to CutePDF and TinyPDF in terms of features. It provides a minimal set but does have the ability to choose different levels of output quality which the other two do not. I can see no reason not to prefer it over the other two unless you often print graphical documents to pdf.
The most commonly asked question by readers has been about the size of the output file. Using a large test file without graphics doPDF and tinyPDF created the smallest files at 1.4 megs, CutePDF, and PDFCreator came in at 1.8 megs, and Bullzip came in at 1.9 megabytes. While CutePDF, PDFCreator and Bullzip were larger they were also set at 600 dpi while the other two did not have the ability to change output and appeared to be 300dpi. This was not a sufficient difference in output file size to make it an important factor for deciding on one over the other. However, when a substantial amount of graphics were included doPDF produced a much larger file than the others. TinyPDF and CutePDF both came in at 3.5 megs (at 300dpi), PrimoPDF and Bullzip both came in at 7.8 megs (at 600dpi) and doPDF came in at a whopping 13.3 megs (at 600dpi). PDFCreator failed to correctly render the page and created failure errors each time it was tried.
Primo pdf was removed from the list of best software because after downloading the newest version on June 5 from their website I found it totally unacceptable. The product still does everything it did before but there is a lag of several seconds from the time I selected the printer until the screen with the Primo interface opened. I even wondered if my computer was hung and was starting to look for the application to stop the process when it finally came up. With no features that are not also found in Bullzip, I decided to delete it from the recommended list. I should note that on my fastest computer it worked reasonably well but still much slower than all other products.
Although PrimoPDF was removed from the recommendations of best pdf Writer it does have a free online version at http://online.primopdf.com/ that allows you to upload a file and receive it back as a PDF via email. If you need a pdf conversion only on rare occassion or you are on a computer that does not allow you to install software, or you don't have a program that can read the file, then this is a reasonable option. Of course there is no opportunity to add passwords, encrypt, or add any of the other features you may need. It is just a straight pdf file.
The most requested missing feature in all of these products is the ability to delete or reorder pages. Sorry but you have to go to a paid product to get these features as none of them provide it in the free version.
HP also offers a free online service called CloudPrint. It is designed to give you the ability to print from a cell phone or PDA. If you check your email from a cell phone and need to print an attachment you can just send it to this service, which will convert it to a PDF file and send a SMS message to your cell phone with a reference ID. When you get to a computer with an Internet interface you can login to the CloudPrint service and print the document. It will also convert and print pictures taken with your cell phone. While I don't see a need for this service personally, some swear by it, especially those who are constantly on the road seeing clients or between multiple offices. This was not considered as one of the best PDF Writers only because it does not produce a file that you can save and keep as a PDF on your local drive. It converts to PDF on the web server and allows you to print it from there. On the other hand, it does allow you to print documents without having the original program that produced the file.
If you select a PDF Writer that you like but it does not have some of the features you need you might consider a couple of products that offer the ability to add functions after creating the file. pdfExchange Viewer is a fast viewer for PDF files that also allows the reader to add annotations to the file. It can then be saved and printed either with or without the annotations. PDFTK Builder allows you to add passwords and limit the ability of the reader to print, annotate, copy portions or otherwise use the pdf file other than reading it. However, it does not have the ability to add encryption. And lastly, JPDF Tweak allows the addition of watermarks, passwords, and encryption as well as limiting the ability to print or copy the file. These all work on a pdf file that has already been created and are not used to create one. Since those are beyond the limited scope of this article I have not included their information in this review, but they are easy enough to find with a web search.
Bullzip
Website: http://www.bullzip.com
Download Link: http://www.bullzip.com/products/pdf/info.php
Author: Bullzip.com
Current Version: 6.0.0.684-5
Version Date: September 19, 2008
Download File Size: 3.92 MB
License: Freeware
Operating Systems Supported: Windows 2000/XP/Vista
Additional Software Required: Ghostscript (download link provided on their website - free under GPL license)
64 Bit Version Available: No
Portable Version Available: No
Non-English Languages Supported: Many, see here.
CutePDF
Website: http://www.cutepdf.com
Download Link: http://www.cutepdf.com/products/cutepdf/writer.asp
Author: CutePDF
Current Version: 2.7
Version Date: unknown
Download File Size: 1.55 MB
License: Freeware
Operating Systems Supported: Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/Vista
Additional Software Required: GhostScript (download link provided on their website - free under GPL license)
64 Bit Version Available: Yes
Portable Version Available: No
Non-English Languages Supported: Unknown, Appears to be English only
doPDF
Website: http://www.dopdf.com/
Download Link: http://www.dopdf.com
Author: Softland
Current Version: 6.0.262
Version Date: April 4, 2008
Download File Size: 1.42 MB
License: Freeware
Operating Systems Supported: Windows 2000/XP/Vista
Additional Software Required: None
64 Bit Version Available: Yes
Portable Version Available: No
Non-English Languages Supported: Too numerous to list
PDFCreator
Website: http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/
Download Link: http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/
Author: Sourceforge Project
Version Number: 0.9.6
Version Date: September 20, 2008
Download File Size: 15.34 MB
License: Freeware
Operating Systems Supported: Windows 98/2000/XP/Vista
Additional Software Required: None - includes and installs Ghostscript
64 Bit Version Available: No
Portable Version Available: No
Non-English Languages Supported: Unknown, Appears to be English Only
TinyPDF
Website: http://www.tinypdf.com/
Download Link: http://www.tinypdf.com/
Author: TinyPDF
Version Number: Unknown
Version Date: Unknown
Download File Size: 586 KB
License: Freeware
Operating Systems Supported: Windows 2000/XP/Vista
Additional Software Required: None
64 Bit Version Available: No
Portable Version Available: No
Non-Entlish Languages Supported: None
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One thing that is common to all these "Print to PDF" PDF writers is that they don't maintain hyperlinks from docs (web pages / word documents). Is there some way to retain web links in the printed PDF's?
I have used CutePDF for over two years now. Never felt the need to try another.
It uses a ghostscript yes, But once setup it never needs adjusting. I print Word, Excel and CAD files As well as web pages and Emails with it. Never fails, never a problem.
And as for annotation I use the latest Foxit reader (with bookmarks and tabbed windows) It has good markup tools, then print the output file to pdf with CutePDF. No need to save and get a watermark. Create new file instead. Works every time.
And for splitting and merging PDF files or Background stamps I found PDFTK-Builder to be an EXCELLENT freeware for that job. http://www.pdfhacks.com/pdftk/
TinyPDF now has a big Ungresitered watermark on every page and they want $49.95 to register.
Some notes on that: I have used TinyPDF on my Desktop for about a year now and was very pleased with it. The pdf file size produced was very small indeed (a single page with images from a 50 kB word document produced a pdf file of about 50-70 kb every time). I tried to install TinyPDF yesterday on my laptop and found out that it had mutated to a "magicPDF" once installed and added an "unregistered" watermark. Moreover, a 3-page text-and-tables-only 58 kB word document produced (at 300 dpi!) a file of 11-14 MB!!! The same file this morning in the "old" tinyPDF desktop produced an 158 kb pdf!! Did they change the engine as well? So...
I decided, ok, I will install one of the other proposed solutions here and got doPDF. Well... the size it produced was 11.8 MB both on my laptop and the desktop. And not so many settings to play with... Am I stuck with a "lucky" installation of tinypdf or am I missing something?
Panos, Piraeus, Greece
"The most requested missing feature in all of these products is the ability to delete or reorder pages. Sorry but you have to go to a paid product to get these features as none of them provide it in the free version."
Have you looked at http://www.pdfsam.org/ - pdf split and merge tool. Works for me to split into separate pages and then reorder and combine. Java based so can be slow. But does what you say people request :-)
Very nice site!
Very nice site!
I've used PDF Creator for a long time - it just works, no fuss, no wedges, no crashes, no impact on other apps.
I rarely have problems printing web pages, and I do it all the time, but much of what I print to PDF is from print friendly page versions.
When I have a problem I use Save as Image (provided by the Abduction extension) to create a png, which I then embed into an empty PDF, sometimes I'll convert to a TIFF, OCR it and tidy it up in Word or OO Writer.
I've never had a problem printing to a PDF from desktop apps - watermarks are not something I use.
I am a serious review reader. So the sentence
"These were (alphabetically) Bullzip PDF Writer, CutePDF, doPDF, PDFCreator, PrimoPDF, and TinyPDF. Which one of these is best?"
makes me make a decision to try the "OTHER" softwares I collected.
1. DoroPdf:
http://www.download.com/The%20SZ%20development/3260-2001_4-6286509.html
It prints a pdf file without any mark.
It allows encryption, authoring,
It seems pretty good, except the file created has something like "...pdf", which makes the system scared about how to open it.
It uses Ghost script but no explicit installation needed.
2. PDFunny, this is no good -- at least on my system. It would not come up.
3. pdf24.
Damn it, it needs reboot.
Wait, it works even without reboot. But it is in German.
Ok, it has English option.
It print out has no water mark, and seems unreasonably fast.
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I really appreciate the method to compare the file size, quality, converstion speed and feature set. But we need some standard document to test image rich page and text rich page -- maybe some popular webpages. The speed seems very hard to determine. Pdf24 seems very fast, but I doubt it start to convert sometimes before we push the OK button.
Anyway, I'd like to say at least 8 softwares worth trying. I wish I can see the comparison table soon.
I downloaded TinyPDF however during installation I was advised that I needed to download Royce PDF Printer. Royce PDF printer is only available as a 30 day trial during which time it will watermark documents (with 'unregistered' I think) after 30 days the licence fee for Royce is USD $89.95.
Tiny PDF doesn't seem to be that free...Hmmmmmmmm.
I have been using FreePDF XP for few years. It has been doing an excellent job all the while. Check out at http://www.shbox.de
What about PDFfill?
U can edit PDF files even with the Free version.
OpenOffice can export to PDF and you can set password and output level. Does that count as a PDF writer? The best part for me was that you can do it with most of the Applications (not sure about Base). All you have to do is go to file and "Export as PDF..." (or just "Export..." in Math). Plus, you were talking about deleting and reordering pages. You can select pages or just print the current selection.
Hmm I've come across an interesting "Feature" of Bullzip. I have 45 pdf's which combine to make a book and I want to merge them all. The separate pdf files combine for a total of 22.6 MB, so you would hope to get a similar file size in the final combined pdf. However after merging just 4 of the original pdfs (filesizes: 305 KB, 523 KB, 503 KB, 128 KB) the resultant pdf is a whopping 26.3 MB. I've just tried reprinting the 26.3 MB file and Bullzip has managed to get it down to 24.8 MB somehow, but that is still ridiculously high. Has anyone else experienced this behaviour?
Okay, I took a large file of over 300 pages and printed it through all the above mentioned software, with comparable settings, and compared the end result. Tinypdf produced the smallest file and was about 18% smaller than the largest. The next smaller file was produced by pdfCreator, then Primo, doPdf, BullZip, and the largest was CutePDF. There was less than 10% difference between the CutePDF and pdfCreator. Similar settings produced similar sizes except for tinyPDF.
My pdf files are reasonable. You might check the quality setting for Bullzip. If it is set on pre-press then it will make a much larger file as it has much more detail than you probably need, especially if your original pieces are not at that same level. For example, it makes no sense to run a 600dpi pdf file through Bullzip at 1200dpi. If the original was 600 then you gain nothing. By default mine is set to printer quality and it works fine with combined files similar in size to the original. If that does not help then let me know and I'll follow up.
Are there any free PDF editors?
And can someone explain why some PDFs are text-based, and some are just an image. I would say that this is useful to know because an image PDF (like you get from Adobe Illustrator) is pretty useless for any further processing.
People send them to me for use in connection with projects (as an email attachment), but I just say "Why send me this junk? It's useless." I haven't got time to OCR it and rebuild all the info. Image-based PDFs aren't much use in many circumstances so we should know if an app outputs a real PDF or just a jpeg equivalent.
Or isn't this relevant if we're just talking about a PDF printer?
chris.p
Okay, I tested all of the above for ability to create a searchable file. Scanned files were unsearchable (need OCR). Files created from WordPad, notepad, OpenOffice, Excel, and Word were all searchable with the exception of those created with BullZip. With BullZip some were searchable and some were not (Excel failed consistently, but only with this product) If this is critical to your need then pick one of the others.
I'll test that specific situation for the PDF printers suggested here but the general rule is you can search inside any PDF that was created from an application (unless of course the application is a graphics program). So, if you write something in Word or WordPad or OpenOffice or whatever and then print it to a PDF file as a general rule that file can be searched for specific words. On the other hand if it is scanned but not using OCR then it cannot be searched and is strictly a graphic image.
Again I will test the specific ones mentioned above but my experience has been that is the case. I just tried it on pdfFactory (used at my office) and opened with pdf-xchange viewer (freeware) and it worked perfectly to search and find. Sounds like your clients need to get a pdf printer driver to create the files instead of printing them and then scanning the output.
I've used CutePDF for a few years now and it has consistently generated the best looking PDFs for me, better than Acrobat itself in many instances. I've used most of the tools quoted (and some not quoted), and CutePDF works best for my purposes. Almost all my PDFs are web pages or MS Word documents.
I have tried lots of the PDF viewers and writers, but most always fell short of my needs, so several years ago I finally tried PDF Factory pro, and have stayed with it. I believe my PDF writer pro cost me $20.00, but there has lately been an increase in price, upgrades and new additions, but I'm still using the PDF Factory Pro I started with.
I've been using PDFCreator (http://www.pdfforge.org/) for a long long time...
Before choosing it and since then I tried all the programs you all mention and some others and it is still the best (at least in the environments I use it): installation, features, options, size of the output generated, merging of diferent printouts, gui, speed, etc., etc.
Well, Ian it's the first time I don't agree with you.
For splitting and merging PDF files, I use "Gios PDF Splitter and Merger" which can be downloaded from http://www.paologios.com/.
The interface isn't fancy, but it is still snappy on my old computer. I really like that I can select various pages from a number of PDF files and create a new PDF file in one step.
I had found a Foxit tool that also did splitting and merging, but it added advertising text on every page.
I use (and like) Carbonite on-line backup. When explaining to me why some files did not back up, Carbonite said, "Some of the .PDF files (the ones not backing up) were probably made using a 3rd party substitute for Adobe Acrobat. Some Acrobat substitutes incorrectly tag the files they create as "temporary". While we don't endorse any other company's product, we're aware that CutePDF, an Acrobat alternative, does not have this problem when creating .PDF files. It's available for free at www.cutepdf.com."
I use MagicPDF daily (was surprised not to see it even mentioned)--I'm not sure if it's still available as freeware, but it does a nice job with just about everything I throw at it (some webpages do stump it, due to complex formatting, but then they stump my regular printers too). It doesn't have passwording or other fancy features, but I don't want those--I want a quick and easy way to print to PDF and MagicPDF does it beautifully. I click Print, it almost immediately gives me a dialog of where to save the PDF to, and presto! Foxit has it popped up in a matter of a second or two.
For the past 3 years I have used NitroPDF. Its not free, but it sure is a lot cheaper than Adobe. I would recommend this product to anyone who doesn't want to pay for over priced Adobe products. One caveat though, I continue to use the free Adobe reader. Seems other machines I work on don't need a licensed copy of NitroPDF and Adobe Reader already come free in many computers anyway. Both Adobe Reader and NitroPDF work together seamlessly.
Is there a freeware PDF editor? I would like on that allows you to delete and insert pages, crop pages, insert free text, and provides form filling.
I have Adobe Standard Version 5 at work and it does this. The newer versions of Adobe Standart remove the insert free text into a document.
Offline free alternative: http://portableapps.com/apps/office/pdftk_builder_portable
Online free alternative: http://www.pdfhammer.com/
Search for "PDFill PDF Editor", the editor itself is not freeware, but it comes with "PDFill PDF Tools" which is freeware, and this can be used to merge, split, reorder and crop PDFs.
To insert text and for filling forms you can use the free PDF reader "PDF-Xchange Viewer".
Unfortunately there seems to be no freeware program that provides all these options in one solution.
Is there a free program that you can make Multi-Page PDF documents?
If not is there a free program that can convert Multiple Pages of PDF documents into one PDF Multi-Page document?
If there are no free programs that can make Multi-Page documents what are the paid ones that can do it?
Thanks
Jammer1957
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