Whether you’re a PC, Mac, or Linux user there is one common document format that’s viewable across multiple operating systems – the Portable Document Format… commonly known as PDF and viewable with Adobe’s free Acrobat Reader.

Whether you’re a PC, Mac, or Linux user there is one common document format that’s viewable across multiple operating systems – the Portable Document Format… commonly known as PDF and viewable with Adobe’s free Acrobat Reader.

PDF stands for Portable Document Format. This means that a PDF document can take whatever you have created on your computer and convert it into a standard format that can be read by someone else with a different computer and a different operating system.

Here are a few free or inexpensive tools that make creating PDF files a breeze.

Print to PDF

If you’re on a Mac, then you can choose to print directly to a PDF. Print your document like you normally would, but for the printer choose the PDF option on the lower left side of the print dialog.

Windows users can also print directly to PDF from within MS Office.

OpenOffice:

Not only does OpenOffice do an excellent job of converting Microsoft documents to PDF format, it’s also completely free and comes with a spreadsheet and word processor that’s comparable to Microsoft Office.

OpenOffice can also read Microsoft documents and can save in Microsoft-compatible formats, so if you’re trying to save some money on software licenses, it’s a great way to go.

Download links and instructions are available at http://www.openoffice.org/

The only drawback in my opinion to using Open Office for pdf conversion is that it’s a large program that takes up a lot of memory, and is slow to open up. But once it’s opened, it works quite well.

Wondershare PDF Converter

Wondershare let’s you save almost any file – Word, Excel, TXT, PowerPoint, and more – as a PDF file. It also lets you go the other way and convert PDF files into multiple popular document formats including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.

You can also use Wondershare to create a secure PDF by requiring users to enter a password before viewing a file, and you can add additional restrictions that prevent it from being copied, printed, and edited after it has been opened.

Wondershare is available for both Windows and Mac users.