All About Technology: Best Free PDF Writer

Wednesday, February 08, 2012

Best Free PDF Writer

Recommending the best product for all users is not always easy due to differing user requirements. For example, most of the recommended writers have many options and while this is a plus for advanced users it is a minus for those who only want a simple PDF writer. Presently, I am most taken with BullZip and PDF24 but all of these programs have their strengths
BullZip is a very strong program that has been time proven to be a top performer. However files created by Bullzip PDF Printer may not be searchable. While it created a searchable pdf from word processing programs it did not from other programs like Excel. All the other candidates produced a searchable document from Excel and other non-word-processing software.
Key features of Bullzip PDF Printer include the ability to:

Password protect your pdf files (only PDFCreator also had this ability)
Use either 40 or 128 bit encryption on the file (only PDFCreator also had this ability)
Add a watermark (PDFCreator had a limited ability to add watermarks)
Append or prepend files (PDFCreator also had this ability)
Choose different levels of output quality (All but CutePDF had this ability)
Add or change metadata (PDFCreator also had this ability)

PDFCreator in its latest version is another strong choice and has all the features of Bullzip with the exception of a 64 bit version and more limited watermark abilities. The help files are available only in English, French and German. However it does have one unique feature among these products. It comes with both a standalone install and a server install. In a company setting this gives you the ability to install the printer driver on a server and make it available to all the workstations on the network without doing an install on each one of them. This may make it a preferred choice in business situations if you don't need the other options that products like Bullzip offer. Version 0.9.8 of PDF Creator did a great job printing a web page to pdf.
doPDF is comparable to TinyPDF in terms of features. It provides a minimal feature set but does have the ability to choose different levels of output quality which the other two do not. I can see no reason not to prefer it over the other two unless you often print graphical documents to pdf.
Among the very basic pdf Writers is CutePDF. This provides only the most minimal functions and creates the pdf file with no options for password, encryption, metadata, or most other optional functions. On the other hand, it is among the smallest of the downloads.
The most commonly asked question by readers has been about the size of the output file. Using a large test file without graphics, doPDF created the smallest files at 1.4 megs, CutePDF and PDFCreator came in at 1.8 megs, and Bullzip came in at 1.9 megabytes. While CutePDF, PDFCreator and Bullzip were larger they were also set at 600 dpi while the other two did not have the ability to change output and appeared to be 300dpi. This was not a sufficient difference in output file size to make it an important factor for deciding on one over the other. However, when a substantial amount of graphics were included doPDF produced a much larger file than the others. CutePDF came in at 3.5 megs (at 300dpi), Bullzip both came in at 7.8 megs (at 600dpi) and doPDF came in at a whopping 13.3 megs (at 600dpi). PDFCreator failed to correctly render the page and created failure errors each time it was tried.
The most requested missing feature in all of these free products is the ability to delete or reorder PDF pages, but you can easily accomplish this task by using some useful tools reviewed in this article Best Free PDF Tools.

Online Solution

Although PrimoPDF was not recommended for the best pdf writer it does have a free online version at http://online.primopdf.com/ that allows you to upload a file and receive it back as a PDF via email. If you need a pdf conversion only on rare occasion or you are on a computer that does not allow you to install software, or you don't have a program that can read the file, then this is a reasonable option. Of course there is no opportunity to add passwords, encrypt, or add any of the other features you may need. It is just a straight pdf file.
HP also offers a free online service called CloudPrint. It is designed to give you the ability to print from a cell phone or PDA. If you check your email from a cell phone and need to print an attachment you can just send it to this service, which will convert it to a PDF file and send a SMS message to your cell phone with a reference ID. When you get to a computer with an Internet interface you can login to the CloudPrint service and print the document. It will also convert and print pictures taken with your cell phone. While I don't see a need for this service personally, some swear by it, especially those who are constantly on the road seeing clients or between multiple offices. This was not considered as one of the best PDF Writers only because it does not produce a file that you can save and keep as a PDF on your local drive. It converts to PDF on the web server and allows you to print it from there. On the other hand, it does allow you to print documents without having the original program that produced the file.

Other PDF Writers

These are a number of other free PDF writers which were brought up in comments here or noted from other sources. As they are not rated in this review, I am listing them here with brief descriptions and links to their sites for ease of reference.

PrimoPDF, a lag of several seconds from the time I selected the printer until the screen with the Primo interface opened. On my fast computer it worked reasonably well but still much slower than all other products.
NitroPDF Printer has both writer and reader capabilities, supports annotation, text extraction, but full features set only found in the paid version.
PDF Redirect has both writer and reader capabilities, can merge PDFs, offers encryption, multi-language support, no adware, but a full feature set is only available in the paid version.
PDFill PDF and Image Writer, many options and stable. Downloads from Cnet (Download.com) require the use of a proprietary installer. This can install additional components you might not want.
WinPDF Writer is for basic PDF writing, small and simple, requires Ghostscript to install if not available on your computer.
PDF XChange comes in with a tabbed interface and zoom-in feature, supports notes, annotations and export options. It has several restrictions, ads supported and installs the ASK toolbar unless you opt-out during setup.

All About Technology

Wednesday, February 08, 2012

Best Free PDF Writer

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