One of the more consistently touted features of OpenOffice is its ability to export documents straight to PDF. But did you know that Office 2007 supports exporting to PDF format as well?
All you need to do is download and install the free "Save as PDF’" Office 2007 add-on from Microsoft. Once installed, this add-on will provide save to PDF functionality in all MS Office 2007 programs, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Visio, Publisher, InfoPath and OneNote (depending on which ones may be insalled on your machine).
To use this feature, download the plugin from this page, then install. From within your Office 2007 application, you can now navigate the office or file menu in the top left, then "save as", then "PDF or XPS" (see screenshot above). Another way to use it is simply to change the "file type" to PDF in any save file dialog, as PDF should now appear in the list alongside other supported file types.
Aside from the sheer convenience of it, once of the things I like a lot about using this add-in to export straight to PDF (vs. using most virtual printers) is that it preserves any live URLs that may exist in the documents as clickable links, whereas most virtual printers do not.
Version Tested: 1.0
Compatibility: requires MS Office 2007. Will not work on earlier versions.
Go to the add-in page to download the latest version (approx 915K).
Or you could download and install CuteWriter and print PDFs from any application, including your Web browser and even Notepad.
Or just install Office 2007 SP2 which includes “Save as PDF” for Word and Excel
In our corporate environment we PDFCreator (http://www.pdfforge.org/), because of the fact that PDFCreator uses GPL-GhostScript and GS creating a much correct pdf documents then in MsOffice PDF creation mechanism and it’s much less cumbersome in installing and using then CuteWriter.
@tong+
I should have made it clear in my post that some installations of Office 2007 come with this addon pre-installed. Will probably edit the text in the next coupe of days. Thanks for your comment!
@ Old Man Dotes, hash
I am all for virtual PDF printers, and in fact PDFCreator is one of my favorite (and, refreshingly, one of the few that is not adware and that prints to bitmap images).
However, it is so much more intuitive for many users, especially those who may not be too computer savvy, to simply “save as” PDF than to negotiate the concept of a virtual printer, etc.
why don’t you guys give cutewriter a try?
Groovy
OpenOffice can do it too.
It’s easier and it’s a freeware.
I think it is one of the most powerful Office 2007 SP2. It is very uncomfortable having to install these virtual printers that gave us so many problems. Greetings.