Help with converting Word file to pdf

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
February 29, 2020
4 replies
1410 views

Does anyone have any tips or websites, that can convert word files to pdf?

Thanks Brian

How to

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer Derek Cross

You can Save as a PDF from the Word Print menu.

jane-e

Community Expert

Hi Brian,

This is an Acrobat question, and I've moved it to the Acrobat forum.

If you have Acrobat Pro, then you should have an Acrobat tab on your ribbon. Use that to make a proper Adobe PDF with the PDFMaker. If you have Acrobat Pro and the tab does not show, then it needs to be enabled. Ask again.
https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/creating-pdfs-pdfmaker-windows.html
If you have the free Adobe Reader, you can use PDFPack to create PDFs from Word. PDFPack is less expensive than Acrobat Pro, but cannot do as much.
https://helpx.adobe.com/reader/using/create-pdf.html

~ Jane

BobLevine

Community Expert

Word has the native capability to save as PDF (at least is does on Windows).

I don't have it installed on my Macbook so I can't tell, but I'd be surprised if you couldn't.

jane-e

Community Expert

Hi Bob,

Adobe gave away PDF technology years ago and not all PDFs are Adobe PDFs — anyone can make them. Using Word's native capability makes a Microsoft PDF, which does not behave as well. To find out how it was done, you can see it in File > Properties in the PDF.

I can only show Mac screenshots — I gave the earlier instructions for Windows.

If the application says "[Acrobat PDFMaker] + [Version] + [Application (Word, Excel, etc.)], it is a good PDF. This is true in both Windows and Mac (although there are differences).

On your Mac, if you File > Print > Save to PDF, it will say Quartz. That means the PDF is not an Adobe PDF. It's a Mac PDF. Adobe PDFs are the best.

~ Jane

BobLevine

Community Expert

Just save it as a PDF. I'm not sure how much more straightforward it could possibly be.

As this has nothing to do with InDesign I'm going to lock this discussion.

jane-e

Community Expert

Bob, I've moved it to the proper forum and unlocked it. It's not that straightforward. But, as you say, it does not belong in the InDesign forum.

In Acrobat Pro, you can:

Create an Adobe PDF with the PDFMaker (best practice)
Create a Microsoft PDF with Save
Print to PDF which uses the Distiller and does not create Bookmarks and Links for TOC, Headings, Index, etc.

In the Reader, you can use PDFPack.

~ Jane