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).
