Tech Tip – How To Create PDFs Without Paying For Specialist Software

PDF (Portable Document Format) files are very useful files because they are a common format that can be shared and are not so easy to tamper with or edit.  The best known software company that makes software for producing PDFs is Adobe, however there is actually a built in PDF creation feature in Microsoft Windows, which allows you to create your own PDFs without any additional software and you can do it from pretty much any application as well.

Here is how to do it:

• Open an application that has the data you want to create the PDF, for example Microsoft Word, or Google Chrome
• Press the keys CTRL + P which will bring up the printing menu
• From the list of printers available, select "Microsoft Print to PDF" as the printer
• Click the print button and then enter the file location and name you want to give the saved PDF file
• This will then generate a PDF output of the contents you have selected to print using the Print to PDF printer output

As with any printer output, you can even specify the page range (print pages 3 - 9 of the document) so you can even change the orientation, switching from portrait to landscape and the scale of the output, making it smaller or larger in size.

Give it a try and see how you get on with it.