How to Generate PDFs from Office Files

In Office 2007 (and the new, beautiful 2010!) creating PDF files is easy. The function is automatically built into the Office button in the top-left corner. But for those of you still using Office 2003 or older, there are plenty of times you'll want to convert a Word document or Excel spreadsheet into PDF format.

For example, a customer asked recently if we could email him some flyers we had made to show different computer prices. It's not a problem to send the files, but if I send him the original Word documents, what kind of message does that send to him? He may think I don't know or can't be bothered to send a PDF file. There's a remote possibility he may fraudulently edit the original file to get a better deal. By sending him a PDF, I've ruled out all of these options.

Another example is with our printing company. They want all files sent to them in PDF format, no exceptions. But on our Point of Sale computer, I only have Office 2003. So here's a free program to download which I've been using to generate my own PDF files from Office. Primo PDF works by acting as a printer on your computer. Tell Word to print your file through Primo PDF, and all the options to create the PDF you want appear automatically!