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Introduction
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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. |
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Discussion
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While I have recommended PDFCreator in the past, I have now moved to either PDFill Writer and/or Bullzip PDF Printer as my personal favorite(s). Both have 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. Please note that both of the recommended writers, and especially PDFill Writer, have enough options that they can be confusing to one who only wishes to create a simple PDF file. Both PDF Creator and Cute PDF Writer will easily suffice for most users. Key features of Bullzip PDF Printer include:
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 is CutePDF. This provides only the most minimal functions and creates the pdf file with no options for password, encryption, metadata, or most other optional functions. On the other hand, it is among the smallest of the downloads. doPDF is comparable to 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 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. CutePDF 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. |
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6.0.0.695 
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What is the 'best' program if you are looking to receive a PDF file, edit and then print?
thanks Sarah
"VisageSoft eXPert PDF 4 Pro is an excellent program that can edit, convert and view PDFs files."
You can get it free. See Free PDF Editor.
Open Office 3 with an extension http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/project/pdfimport
is claimed to handle opening, editing and saving PDF files.
I will publish more after further testing.
Sorry for the too quick reply. I was thinking of actual freeware programs on your computer. There is an on-line service, http://www.pdfescape.com/ which does seem quite capable.
Registration is not necessarily required, it does allow you to fill forms and edit the document, then save to your computer or have the file e-mailed to you.
I hope this helps.
Sarah,
I am sorry to say that I have not found a truly free PDF Editor that works well enough to recommend. Maybe someone else has seen such a program.
avoid PDFCreator, it installs crapware without asking you! I was so disappointed
*WARNING* PDFCreator include pdfforge toolbar which meddling with Firefox/IE setting. Until PDFforge do something with it, use others instead.
Fantastic article, mate! That's all I needed. Thanks!
Thanks for sharing your tips, its tips like these that actually do make a difference to the individual readers of this blog. Thank you and well done.
What about PDFill FREE PDF Writer!? http://www.pdfill.com/freewriter_pdf.html
Think the following might be in order..
"Thanks for the great suggestion anonymous user!
Dave"
I tried almost all of the other pdf creators but most of them have problems converting .tiff files to pdf. Cutepdf works fine but the quality is rather low and i cannot control the author's name. Bullzip works perfectly for me and the pdf created is sharp and clear. I would have never found this program if not for your article.
Thanks very much for recommending Bullzip PDF Printer.
Needed a quick PDF app for a PC so tried CutePDF. Works 100%.
Install it first, then let it grab the Ghostscript exe off the web and auto-install it (Cute is a tiny install at 1.5MB or something but it needs the 5MB Ghostscript engine as well).
Excellent quality, wrote a 25kB RTF file to a 65kB PDF. Just the job.
ps Don't go looking for an application to run, to do your PDFs - there isn't one - it's a phantom printer. In your RTF file or whatever just hit Cntrl+P to print it, then choose the Cute 'printer'. It just creates a pdf file wherever you want, it doesn't print it. If you need that printed, then print from within the pdf :)
Thanks to Dave and all the commenters here.
chris.p
I have tried most of these and Bullzip PDF Printer gets my top vote to.
Try PDF Redirect. I use it since many years. It's perfect!
http://www.exp-systems.com/
Yes, It's really great!
I have tried bullzip pdf printer, and I found that it is limited for printing chinese characters.
I also tried pdffill and immediately deleted it since it requires both ghostscript and java.
Besides, I think I should mention that one can merging pdfs by pdf Redirect.
Grab this free professional PDF suite and kiss your PDF creation/edition problems/needs goodbye, guys!
http://dottech.org/freebies/5362
Grab it while still available!
Some simple Registry keys editing/saving after installing (and maybe necessarily reinstalling it) and, voilá!, you're done for having it in English!
All the best from bRaZiL! ;)
This is not for 64-bit XP or Vista.
I tried PDFCreator, FreePDF XP and CutePDF. I find the quality of the image better in PDFCreator. As for the features, i think PDFCreator and FreePDF XP are about the same, for CutePDF i cannot speak, as i only looked at the quality of the produced pdf. PDFCreator also worked without a problem for me for creating a pdf from a website in a browser (Opera 10 Turbo Alpha Build 1413). It is my favourite free PDF creating tool. Maybe you should retest the latest version of PDFCreator.
It matters not whether you compare costware or freeware, open or closed source PDF writers, PDFCreator is way ahead of any on this page in regards to real key areas - even though it may lack some of the bells and whistles of some in this test. Why it was not reviewed speaks volumes about a rushed job to publish findings rather than really searching the globe hard to find the best.
PDFCreator is very low in resource use compared to some in this test, quick as a bunny, and with take-it-to-the limit resolve be it for my 1440 x 900 screen or my 4000dpi Canon MP colour printers, PDFCreator beats the others by a significant margin - especially when you compare output of complex graphics and text in 32bit colour. This is what I know after nearly 5 months of tracking down PDF writers, editors, creators & makers around the WWW, installing,working with, and comparing analogue and digital output under very specific conditions. I use PDF every day in my profession so give PDFC careful consideration.
Venkmann
Try MagicPDF free version is very good program for creating pdf files:
http://www.magicpdf.com/
Notes:
Its size is ~ 1 MB and doesn´t need of Adobe Acrobat or GhostScript
Useless. This is not freeware, it prints a massive UNREGISTERED watermark on the file.
Don't bother with this.
chris.p
It seems to be an interesting product. However, at this point in time, no matter where one clicks on the website, the Pro version is downloaded which if unregistered puts a watermark on the output. Did I miss something?
PDF995 http://www.pdf995.com/ is another PDF writer that will be reviewed soon.
pdf xchange is a great program for editing pdf files... Some features will only work in pro version, but there is no other crap in the free version
I am looking for a way to scan a document then be able to type on it on screen then print.
Try pdffiller.com. That is how i do it.
CutePDF is rubbish. It can't handle squat
I tried Bullzip PDF and it doesn't create PDF's in landscape! If you have a landscape image it comes out portrait! I have used CutePDF and a couple of the other recommended freeware and they work fine. So Bullzip is Bull**** and don't waste your time. Sorry Harold but you better do more thorough testing!
I've created landscape pdfs using Bullzip with no problem!
My favorite free PDF creator is:
http://www.freepdfcreator.org
Thanks, this worked out well for me.
Good tip. I tried it and was impressed:
- smallish download
- fast creation
- small PDFs with good quality
Is this comparison to CutePDF accurate though?
http://www.freepdfcreator.org/cutepdf.htm
You download it and the file is named "InstallTinyPDF" but when you run the installation, it switches and says that its installing "MagicPDF Pro 3.2"
SCARY! I thought I was tricked into downloading fake spyware/adware/malware.
Stay AWAY from TinyPDF. Its not "free, no catch" like it says on their web site.
Shame on them!
TinyPDF used to be good but the current version you download, opens a web page registration, and has a giant diagonal blue UNREGISTERED watermark on every page of the PDF you generate. What a turnoff. Uninstalled!
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?
Theres a PDF converter built into the free Open Office. It keeps hyperlinks.
If you are mostly doing Word type docs, you may prefer Open Office.
openoffice.org
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!
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.
============================================================
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.