A resolution of 600 dpi is good for on-screen viewing.As well, you can tell PDFCreator how to compress the text and graphics in a PDF and whether to embed all system fonts or just the fonts that are used in your document.īased on my experience with creating PDFs (using a number of applications, both in Windows and Linux), I’ve found that the following configuration works well: You can, for example, select a compatibility level (to ensure that your PDFs can be viewed in both newer and older versions of PDF readers), set the resolution, and make sure that the file opens and displays as quickly as possible when posted on the Web. You can configure many of the same options that are available in Adobe Acrobat. To configure PDFCreator, click Start -> All Programs -> PDFCreator -> PDFCreator, and then select Printer -> Options. While you can start using PDFCreator right out of the box, you can (and should) tweak the settings to produce better PDFs. If you have another version of Ghostscript - such as the GNU or EPS variants - installed on your computer and want to use that instead, you can do so by clicking the Ghostscript option and selecting your preferred version from a dropdown list. One version of the PDFCreator installer bundles AFPL Ghostscript version 8.54. After downloading the installer, run it and follow the prompts. The Windows executable comes in two versions - one with Ghostscript, one without. You can get the installer as either a Windows executable or as a Microsoft Installer package. You can download the installer for PDFCreator from its project page.

For most purposes, it’s a great alternative to Acrobat. Built on top of Ghostscript, a popular free PostScript interpreter, PDFCreator is fast and configurable.

Luckily, Windows users can create PDFs from any application using the GPL-licensed PDFCreator. Acrobat has more functions and features than they’ll generally use, and with a price tag of $299 ($449 for the professional edition), Acrobat costs more than many people want to spend. For many Windows users who want to create PDF files, Adobe Acrobat is overkill.

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