M aybe you would like to create a PDF from a document or web page, but you don't want to invest in Adobe Acrobat Professional because it is expensive, or you only need to create PDF files occasionally. For example, you need to create a PDF copy of your library's Disaster Plan to send to OLIS. Here are two freeware programs that work as printer drivers. If you can print a document or page, you can use one of these tools to 'print to PDF' instead. The PDF 'printer' will appear on the list of available printers. Adobe Reader will still be needed to view PDF files.

1. Download CutePDF Writer. Once you have installed CutePDF Writer, you can select it from the File/Print menu of any application, and save a PDF to your hard drive. (Note: Download and install GPL Ghostscript 8.15 first, then install CutePDF Writer 2.6. Do not install CutePDF Writer Companion, because it has adware).
2. Another free PDF tool is PDFCreator. This is an Open Source PDF 'printer' with more features than CutePDF Writer. TheOpenCD project chose PDFCreator as the best Open Source program for creating PDF files in Windows. A very useful feature of PDFCreator is that it can be used to combine several documents (Word, Excel, anything you can print), into a single PDF file.