Converting documents to .pdf

[Jeff Sundin]

A customer sent me a bunch of MS Word and Excel documents that I need to convert over to pdf's. Initially I was just going to buy MS Publisher and convert them using that. But when I started shopping I stumbled into a variety of inexpensive tools that convert a variety of file types into pdf files. Anyone had good experiences with one particular software over another?
I did get interested in the package offered by docudesk.com. Their package promises accurate .doc to .pdf as well as .pdf to .doc and a bunch of others. Anyone familiar with that?

[wige]

The program I use is Cute PDF Writer. It is a free program that installs itself as a printer driver. Simply open the file you want to convert to PDF format, select print, change your printer to CutePDF, and set the filename, and you are done.

I don't have the link at the moment, but a quick Google search should find it. It works on Windows XP and Vista, and I have not found a document it could not convert.

[Jeff Sundin]

Thank you, Will this also convert .pdf to .doc?

[wige]

No, that specific tool only performs a quick one way conversion.

[WDC]

Has anyone tried Adobe flash paper

[Jeff Sundin]

Thank you! Now I'm embarassed. I have Flash Paper, it came bundled with the CS2 and I never even tried to use it. I used it just now and it worked great. I'll still need to get a tool that converts PDF to DOC but this is very helpful.

It's interesting that when I was searching (google) for the converter, Flash Paper never came up in the results (at least not in the first few pages).
Thanks again.

[jboeckman]

I actually like Free PDF Converter - create high-quality PDF from any printable file type it has a lot of cool features. I haven't used Flash Paper so if you like that let me know and I may switch to using it.

[uberanimal]

you can actually use photoshop as well do convert to PDF. might not be an OCR file then but its worth a shot.

[Jeff Sundin]

A quick update. The Adobe Flash Paper has worked perfectly for me. It takes a couple of clicks and you're done.

[Alan-Hart]

For simple conversion use this: Create Adobe® PDF Online: Easily convert and create PDF documents

Converts the following formats:

Microsoft® Office:
Word (.doc), PowerPoint (.ppt), Excel (.xls)
(documents which Microsoft Office 2000 is able to successfully open and print.)
Other Microsoft Formats
Publisher (.pub)
(documents which Microsoft Publisher 2002 is able to successfully open and print.)
Adobe Formats
Illustrator® (.ai), InDesign™ (.indd), FrameMaker® (.fm, .mif), PageMaker® (.pm, .pm6, .p65, .pmd, .pmt), Photoshop® (.psd)
Note: Files from Illustrator version 9 or later are already stored as PDF files and do not require conversion. InDesign files later than version 2.0 are not supported for conversion.
AutoCAD
AutoCAD (.dwg)
Note: Create Adobe PDF Online only supports AutoCAD files saved as versions Release 2.5 through AutoCAD 2002.
Corel WordPerfect Office Formats
WordPerfect (.wpd)
Adobe PostScript® Formats
PostScript (.ps, .prn), Encapsulated PostScript (.eps)
Text Formats
Rich Text Format (.rtf), Text (.txt)
Image Formats
Windows bitmap (.bmp), GIF (.gif), JPEG (.jpg), PCX (.pcx), PICT (.pct, .pict), PNG (.png), RLE (.rle), TIFF (.tif)

[josh08]

thanks for the information.. i have an idea of using the flash paper.