PDF Advantages and How to Convert Documents into PDFs

There are a lot of different file formats in the world of desktop publishing. Even if you just look at basic word processors there are conflicting file formats. Windows users have a .doc format. People who are on the Mac platform use Pages files. Fans of Open Office on all platforms have the .odf format. That's three formats--and then there's the specialty software. While there is a trend to make all Office suites more compatible with .doc this is only a patch since there is no perfect compatibility. Unless, that is you use a cross platform format. The most widely used and recognized of these is the PDF format.

Aside from its near universality, PDF also has some other impressive advantages.

* Display quality. The quality of images can vary from system to system and program to program. Pdf allows for a certain degree of universalitality.

* Users will have a harder time altering your work. It’s not impossible to alter a PDF, but it is harder then a standard document.

There are a wide range of tools that allow you to convert your files to PDF. A lot of commercial products on the market come with a price tag. They can range from a modest 20 dollars to over 100 dollars. Sure, you could probably eek out 20 extra dollars for that, but I think that we can do better. I think that you can get the same capability for free. Let’s take a look at some of your no cost choices.

Use a stand alone converter site. There are several sites that will take a document and convert it to a PDF. Some of the basic conversion tools are good for short documents. Some options include:

• www.dopdf.com/
• www.pdfonline.com/
• www.verypdf.com/

For longer documents you can use Google documents. Here you have the option of either importing your document or creating it on the site. You can then export it as a PDF.

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