PDF Writer, Free?

Awhile back someone mentioned that they had a program that was *free* that could create PDFs.

A friend has a need for such a program, but my surfing/googling hasn't yielded an answer.

Can someone refresh my memory?

Thanks!

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Jim Thompson
Loading thread data ...

Yes, with pdflatex you can create PDFs (the text has to be written in LaTeX, of course). There are also free tools available for PostScript-to-PDF conversion; ps2pdf for instance.

All this is more or less standard stuff in UNIX/Linux systems. But I guess that these things are available for native Windows as well.

Regards, Mario

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Digital Force / Mario Trams      Mario.Trams@informatik.tu-chemnitz.de
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Mario Trams

I got my copy as part of Adobe PhotoDeluxe that came with the HP Scanjet3300C. If you go to HP's website you can download the files that were on the original distribution CD. (kids, don't try this at home without broadband)

Oppie

sig line moved to bottom specially for JT :-) thanks for the heads up.

--
     For valid response address, remove the '1' following oppie
Reply to
Oppie

Take a look at:

formatting link

They claim free with no Spyware/Adware but I haven't used it myself.

Robert Hickey

*free*

hasn't

Reply to
Robert Hickey

Thanks, Robert. Downloaded it and passed it on. Friend is computer illiterate *and* cheap... we'll see how it works out ;-)

(I have Adobe Acrobat myself.)

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Jim Thompson

formatting link
works well for me.

--
Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Michael A. Terrell
[snip]

That page implies that you first print a PS file then convert. Is that a correct interpretation?

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Jim Thompson

If he/she just wants to create "MS office" type documents, they can pop over to openoffice.org, download the suite (only 63M, so just a few minutes). You can export as PDF directly from the program. It opens Word, Excel, etc. documents. The price is right, too. (free).

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

--
"it's the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Spehro Pefhany

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Ghostscript, which at least in my experience is the de facto standard for non-Adobe PDF creation. There even exist plugins to create a "PDF Printer" much like Adobe's own. I've used Ghostscript many times to create a PDF from a CAD drawing.

formatting link

Reply to
Garrett Mace

Sounds like you've already found a solution. If that doesn't work, there's always ghostscript. There is a Windows version, which you can download free from somewhere. One of the batch utilities that comes with it is a PS to PDF converter. In previous versions, it took quite a bit of flogging to make the converter work, but my recollection is that the most recent release works with no modification.

-- Mike --

Reply to
Mike

yeah. and it opened my xls, doc, etc. files. so it looks like it does everything the microshaft product does, but the UI might be better/easier to learn.

mike

Reply to
Active8

formatting link
is a shell program that uses Ghostscript and Ghostwriter to do the grunt work.

--
Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

No, its like Frank said, you select PDF995 as your printer, then a window pops up for you to enter a filename. You can select a directory if you want a different one, then you click save. That's all there is to it.

--
Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

But he said free - not powered by spam.

Reply to
nospam

Scribus will convert .txt to .pdf and write them from scratch too.

--
Gregg
*Perhaps it's useful, even if it can't be SPICE'd*
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Gregg

Try lyx

Reply to
Jeroen Vriesman

??? I have used it for over a year, and I have never seen any spam from it.

--
Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

I think this is the link your looking for. This one works great.

formatting link

Reply to
Martin Riddle

I have been using it for almost a year and very impressed with it. But since the OP was asking for a free software package, I did not mention it.

Best regards,

Mostafa

------------------------------------------------------ Mostafa Kassem

formatting link
Reply to: M DOT Kassem AT ieee DOT org

-----------------------------------------------------

Reply to
Mostafa Kassem

ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.