PDF Research Adobe Acrobat Components...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
PDFWriter...
While Acrobat Reader is free and available for download over the internet, creating PDF files requires the purchase of Adobe Acrobat - preferably, the latest version.
For most users, PDFWriter is the most direct way to create a PDF format file. It was designed to be used for quick conversion of simple business documents (notably, Microsoft Word and Excel files) to PDF. This file conversion is unable to handle conversion of postscript or .eps files to .pdf. For those purposes, Distiller offers the better conversion methodology.
PDFWriter is software that operates like a printer driver. Instead of selecting or choosing a printer as the destination for the output of a file, the user can choose the PDFWriter driver and "print" to a PDF file format for the document. This capability is available for use with virtually any program which has a print routine.
1. Creating PDF Files on a Mac |
||
|
The first step for creating a PDF file using PDFWriter is to go to the Chooser and make sure that the Acrobat™ PDFWriter "virtual" print driver is selected.
Now when you go to Page Setup in whatever program you are in the following dialog box should appear:
Notice that PDFWriter Page Setup has familiar controls for specifying page size and orientation. The important options to concern yourself with are the Compression and Fonts options. When in doubt, it is safer to print documents to a larger page size than you need since you can always crop the final PDF in Exchange when you are finished. If you click on Compression, the following dialog box appears:
The default settings (above) for PDFWriter Compression are applicable for most internet-destined uses you might have. Conventional wisdom holds that ASCII format options are more universal than the default (Binary) but in practice, Binary files are totally cross-platform and are smaller than ASCII - so leave this box unchecked. The only time you might change these settings is: 1) if your known users are more likely to have older Acrobat software installed - then change compatibility to Acrobat 2.1 and 2) if your use of the final PDF is for high resolution printing purposes - then unclick the Compression settings. When you are ready, click "OK". The next Page Setup dialog box to consider is for Font Embedding:
While older versions of PDFWriter had a problem with Truetype fonts, Adobe assures us that this is no longer the case - unless 1) your Truetype fonts are not "clean" industry produced standards or 2) you have competing versions of Type 1 and Truetype fonts installed in the same System. In any event, it is recommended that the creator of a Internet distributed PDF file select Embed All Fonts. If the files are to remain editable then DO NOT select Subset Type1 or Subset TrueType fonts. These options will embed only the characters used in the document so the editing option will be handicapped if they are subset. Conversely, if you elect to Subset the fonts your files will be smaller and harder to edit. When you have finished making your choices, click "OK". Now you are ready to "print" your file to the PDF format. After making your choices, select "OK" in your Page Setup dialog box and then open the Print command dialog box:
You can now elect to print the entire document or any page range within. In Microsoft Word, you can also select "Word Options" for printing comments, hidden text and comments, etc. In Microsoft Excel, you can print just the individual charts simply by selecting them and then chosing Selection Only in the print dialog box. Or you can print individual Worksheets if you want. Be sure to take page setup page orientation into account before printing portrait or landscape selections. When you have finished "printing" your file to the PDF format, proceed to Exchange to proof and enhance it. |
||
2. Creating PDF files on Windows |
||
|
In the Page Setup dialog box, make sure that the Acrobat™ PDFWriter "virtual" print driver is selected so that the following dialog box appears:
Notice that PDFWriter Page Setup has familiar controls for specifying page size and orientation. The important options to concern yourself with are the Compression and Fonts options. When in doubt, it is safer to print documents to a larger page size than you need since you can always crop the final PDF in Exchange when you are finished. If you click on Compression, the following dialog box appears:
The default settings (above) for PDFWriter Compression are applicable for most internet-destined uses you might have. Conventional wisdom holds that ASCII format options are more universal than the default (Binary) but in practice, Binary files are totally cross-platform and are smaller than ASCII - so leave this box unchecked. The only time you might change these settings is: 1) if your known users are more likely to have older Acrobat software installed - then change compatibility to Acrobat 2.1 and 2) if your use of the final PDF is for high resolution printing purposes - then unclick the Compression settings. When you are ready, click "OK". The next Page Setup dialog box to consider is for Font Embedding:
While older versions of PDFWriter had a problem with Truetype fonts, Adobe assures us that this is no longer the case - unless 1) your Truetype fonts are not "clean" industry produced standards or 2) you have competing versions of Type 1 and Truetype fonts installed in the same System. In any event, it is recommended that the creator of a Internet distributed PDF file select Embed All Fonts. If the files are to remain editable then DO NOT select Subset Type1 or Subset TrueType fonts. These options will embed only the characters used in the document so the editing option will be handicapped if they are subset. Conversely, if you elect to Subset the fonts your files will be smaller and harder to edit. When you have finished making your choices, click "OK". Now you are ready to "print" your file to the PDF format. After making your choices, select "OK" in your Page Setup dialog box and then open the Print command dialog box:
You can now elect to print the entire document or any page range within. In Microsoft Word, you can also select "Word Options" for printing comments, hidden text and comments, etc. In Microsoft Excel, you can print just the individual charts simply by selecting them and then chosing Selection Only in the print dialog box. Or you can print individual Worksheets if you want. Be sure to take page setup page orientation into account before printing portrait or landscape selections. When you have finished "printing" your file to the PDF format, proceed to Exchange to proof and enhance it.
|
||
