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Printing to PDF

November
17

Printing out documents to send to other people can be a pain. Not only that the person receiving the document has to deal with lots of hard copy. Don’t get me wrong, I do think there is a time and a place for hard copy. It would just be nice to minimize those times and places.

One great way to print less to hard copy is to print to PDF. This is functionally equivalent to saving whatever you’re looking at as a PDF file.

One a Mac this is a built in function. Click on “PDF” in the lower left of the print menu. (See below)

On a PC there are some programs that have a “Save as PDF” function built in. To make it so you can save as PDF from any Windows program you’ll need to install a PDF printer driver. Once the driver is installed a PDF printer will show up in your printer list. To save as PDF all you need to do is print the file like you normally would and select the PDF printer instead of your paper printer. You’ll then be presented with a Save As option. Save the file. Viola. You’re done.

There are two PDF drivers (for PCs) that I recommend: CutePDF Writer and PDF Creator. They are both small, free, and easy to use. PDF creator is a little more lightweight and CutePDF Writer has a slightly more refined user interface. You can’t go wrong with either.

This is how I have been submitting my grade books and other reports for the past year and I have been loving it.

Note: This software is not currently installed on school computers. Hopefully it will be installed soon.