How to Convert Microsoft Word Document to PDF for Free

This is for Windows systems. Install an open source (free software) PDF converter on your system and convert any printable document such as Microsoft Word, html web pages, and plain text files to PDF.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Desire to convert printable documents to PDF
• Microsoft Windows PC or laptop
• 19 Mega bytes of free disk space

1. 
   Finding PDFCreator

   Open source software is written by volunteers developers who make many useful software tools and give them away for free. PDFCreator is one of the results of this labor of love. It behaves like a printer in a PC so that the user can convert anything printable into a PDF file. to get PDFCreator, go to http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator and click on the big "download" arrow.

2. 
   Downloading PDFCreator

   Click on the "Download PDFCreator ..." graphics. The download page will display and the download will start automatically. Make sure you know the location of the downloaded file; I usually download it to my Desktop. the file name should be PDFCreator-0.9.6-setup.exe. The numerics in the file name is the version number. Sourceforge automatically provides the latest version for download.

3. 
   Choose Default Language

   After you download the set-up file, locate it and then double-click it to start the installation process. The first display after you double-click is a panel for language selection. Choose the default language that you want to use then click "OK" to continue.

4. 
   PDFCreation Installation Welcome

   The installation process is very straight-forward; you can choose all default options and everything will be ok. The first panel is an introduction. Click "Next" to continue.

5. 
   Accepting the Terms of License

   Then comes the legalese. Since this is open-source software, its license is free. The only requirement is that if you make a change in this software, you are obligated to publish your changes and provide them free to the public. If you are just a user of the software, there is no problem in accepting the terms of the license. Click "I accept ..." then click "Next" to continue.

6. 
   Standard Installation

   Choose "Standard" installation if you are using this software on one PC and not sharing this PDF "printer" across the network. This article only covers "Standard" installation. Click "Standard" then click "Next" to continue.

7. 
   Choose "PDF Printer" Name

   Choose the name of the PDF "printer" the default name "PDFCreator" works well. Click "Next" once you are happy with the name you choose.

8. 
   Choose Program Name

   Choose where the program will be stored. the default "C:\Program Files\PDFCreator" suits most PC's. You need to change this only if you want to store it somewhere else. Click "Next" once you are satisfied with the name.

9. 
   Choose Whether to Install PDFCreator Web Browser Tool Bar

   The next panel shows you that you can install the PDF converting capability directly into your web browser. Click "next" and then you can decide whether you want it in the next panel by clicking to "check" or "uncheck" that choice . In my case, I chose not to install into my web browser because if I can just use the normal print capability to convert anything to PDF, I don't need to have another way to do it; but to each his own .... Click "Next" in each panel to continue.

10. 
    Name in Start Menu and Desktop Icon

    The next two panels let you choose the name of this program in the Windows "Start" menu and whether you want to have an icon for it in your Desktop. Click "Next" once you have made you selections in each panel.

11. 
    Summary of Options

    Almost there! This panel summarizes your selections. If you are satisfied with your choices, click "Next" to start the installation. If you change your mind on something, click "Back" until you arrive at the panel for that choice; make your choice then continue by clicking "Next" again.

12. 
    Installation Process

    The installation will proceed automatically from this point on. You may cancel the installation while it's working by clicking "Cancel". But if you let you go on, eventually it will arrive at the last panel proclaiming the completion of the installation. Click "Finish" to ... finish.

13. 
    "Printing" to PDF

    Once you have installed PDFCreator, any time you want to convert a document into PDF, open that document using the appropriate program; for example, Microsoft Word for .doc documents; then click the "File" pull-down and select "Print". A print panel will appear; click on the "down" arrow to the right of the "Printer Name" box. "PDFCreator" or the name that you chose during the installation process will be in a list of available printers. Move your mouse over the PDFCreator name and click to highlight it. Click "OK" to start the conversion to PDF. Click "Save" in the next panel where it confirms the document's information. Click "Save" again in the following panel which asks for the location and the name of the pdf file that you want to save to.

14. 
    Showing Result of PDF Conversion

    And there you have it! PDFCreator will open the newly generated PDF file with your PDF reader program to show you the result.

Tips & Warnings

• Open-source developers are all volunteers; they want to provide quality software to the public for no cost; a good example is the Firefox web browser. If you like the open-source software that you use, consider making a donation to continue its development.