PDF – How to Create Your Own

Charlene Polanosky (from Essential Kystrokes) has beat me to the punch this week and has written a great explanation of how to create your own PDF files from any other file that you might have.

I had been meaning to write something similar and then send it through to all the sites that are still posting links to Word documents on their websites (a pet peeve of mine).

What many people don’t realise is that office-type documents (word processing, spreadsheets, presentations) as well as most other applications are very specific in who can read the file you create (you must have the smae applications, at the same or new version). Applications have different versions, on different operating systems and will render the document layout in different ways.

What you might think is a great looking document can end up looking like a pre-schooler just got through with it. Or the person trying to read it may not be able to open it at all. Worst of all is that many of those office documents are open to attracting viruses (achoo! sorry you must have caught that cold/virus too).

If you create a PDF file (which standards for Portable Document Format) you will increase the readability, deliverability and professionalism of your electronic documents.

No excuses now! Thanks to Char for ticking that one off the list for me.