Free PDF Maker- Learn what options you have to make PDF's on a budget

By George Margolin, Editor, editor@netsurfernews.com

Do you get frustrated when someone wants you to send them a PDF and you do not have a program to make one? Try CutePDF.com. There is a CutePDF writer that is a free download (don’t forget to download the converter as you need both files to make it work), from which you can make basic PDF files with, versus a $200 program.  

Download here at:

http://www.cutepdf.com/Products/CutePDF/writer.asp

Download both the writer and the converter program to get Cutepdf to work.

Some other tools you might try are:  www.ps2pdf.com or www.fastpdf.com.  But I have not found them as useful.

Paperport by Scansoft will create PDF files as will most of the later WordPerfect programs. Active PDF is a reasonably priced alternative to the free version listed above at only $79 US.

Another program that Steve Bass from PC World found was free Adobe Reader SpeedUp. If you have Adobe Acrobat especially version 6, it loads very, very  slowly. If you do not use all the plug-ins that Acrobat loads (most people do not), this program will spea up the loading of Acrobat. To get the file, go to PCWorld.com and search for Adobe Speedup. You install it once and can uninstall if you need more plug-ins to be loaded.