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How to create PDF files without commercial software?
I used to use Adobe Exchange 5.0 for creating PDF files from various Windows applications. Adobe Exchange installs a printer driver called Adobe Distiller that interprests the output into a PDF format and writes to a file. This was a very nice tool although it costs a few hundred dollars, which the company I was working for paid for. I do not have this software anymore, so I needed an alternative way to create the PDF files.
I did a Google search and found a few good solutions. The easiest way to do this is by using an open source, openoffice.org, application. Open Office opens Microsoft documents, spreadsheets and power points; and provides an Export toolbar icon that will generate a PDF file.
If you would like to generate a PDF file from any Windows application, you may opt in for a PDFCreator. PDFCreator is a Free Software that uses Ghostscript to generate a PDF file from any Windows application. Once installed, the user can select the PDFCreator as a printer and prints any document to a PDF file. This works very much like the Adobe Distiller.
Another option is to create your own PDF Printer much like Adobe Distiller (as in PDFCreator) on Windows. The solution uses Ghostscript and RedMon to translates the postscript file into a PDF format (Ghostcript), and redirect it to a file (RedMon). In my experience, the result from this solution was better than the Adobe Distriller that came with the Adobe Exchange 5.0. The solution was provided by the articles referenced at the bottom of this article. I personally like to thank those two individuals for putting together a nice webpage and a PDF document that anyone can follow to create a PDF Writer.
Platforms:
o Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, XP and Vista
o Ghostscript is available on other platforms such as Linux, so it's quite possible that a user may be able to manually convert a postscript (.ps) file into a PDF (.pdf) file format on non-Windows operating systems. (Not tested) If you know of a solution that works on MacOS or Linux, please add a comment to this article.
Free Software:
Software utilized in this article are available for free under GPL or AFPL license.
1. Ghostscript
Download and install latest Ghostscript from ftp://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/ghost/GPL/current. At the time of this writing, the latest version is gs860w32.exe. Do not take default install directory of "C:\Program Files\gs" as having the space in the directory name will cause a problem later.
2. RedMon - Redirection Port Monitor
Download and install latest RedMon from ftp://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/ghost/ghostgum. The downloadable link is available toward bottom of the page. At the time of this writing, the latest version is redmon17.zip.
Setup Procedure:
I am creating a PDF Writer, a printer emulation that creates PDF files, on Windows XP. Setup procedure for Windows 2000 and Vista are pretty similar. Although the references below gives great examples of how to create PDF Writer on your computer, the information has been modified for Windows XP.
1. Start the Add Printer Wizard. Goto Start -> Printers and Faxes -> Add Printer.
2. Click Next to Continue.
3. Choose Local Printer attached to this computer. Do NOT check "Automatically detect and install my Plug and Play printer", as we do NOT have a physical hardware to detect. Click Next to continue.
4. Choose Create a new port: option, and select "Redirected Port" from the combo box. If you do not see "Redirected Port" option, you have NOT installed RedMon. Please install RedMon if you haven't already. Click Next to continue.
5. A new dialog box, "Add Redirected Port", appears. Accept the default name, "RPT1:" and click OK.
6. You will now have to select a printer that will do postscript that can be translated to PDF by Ghostscript. You'll need to select a color printer, if you want the PDF Writer to produce color PDF files. HP Laserjet series are one of the well known printer types, so I'll use "HP Color LaserJet 8550-PS" but you can choose any postscript printer. Click Next to continue.
7. The next screen allow you to name your printer. Since this is a PDF emulator, I suggest you name it accordingly such as PDF Writer or PDF Emulator. You probably do not want to make this your default printer, so click NO to "Do you want to use this printer as the default printer?". Click Next to continue.
8. The next screen asks if you want to print a test page. Answer "No" to this question as we're not quiet done with our installation yet.
9. Ok, we have just installed a new postscript printer that will print postscript files. We'll now use RedMon to redirect the printer out to a "Redirected Port", so that we can save PDF in a file.
10. Go back to "Printers and Faxes" window, and right click on the "PDF Writer" printer we have just installed and select Properties
11. On the "PDF Writer" Properties Window, click on the "Printing Preferences..." button.
12. On the "PDF Writer" Printing Preferences Window, click "Layout" tab, and click "Advanced..." button.
13. On the Advanced Options window, find and expand the Postscript Options. For Postscript Output Option:, choose Optimize for Portability. Click OK to close the window. Click OK again on the Preferences Window to close the dialog.
14. On the Properties Dialog box, click on the Ports tab. The RPT1: will be selected for printer port.
15. Click on the "Configure Port..." button. On the Properties page, fill in the following port options:
Redirect this port to the program:
C:\gs\gs8.60\bin\gswin32c.exe
Arguments for this program are:
@c:\gs\pdfwrite.rsp -sOutputFile="%1" -c save pop -f -
Output:
Prompt for filename
16. Click OK to close the Printer Properties window. On the previous screen, we gave pdfwriter.rsp filename as onen of the argument passed to the Ghostscript program. Let's create this file. Using your favorite text editor (such as Notepad or Wordpad), create a file with the following contents:
-IC:\gs\gs8.60\lib;C:\gs\fonts
-sDEVICE=pdfwrite
-r600
-dNOPAUSE
-dSAFER
-sPAPERSIZE=letter
17. Save the file as C:\gs\pdfwriter.rsp as chosen on Step 15. When saving file from a Notepad or Wordpad, you'll have to choose "All Files" as the file type in order for the application to NOT add .txt extention.
18. We've just created a Virtual Printer that will print PDF to a file. To create a PDF from any Windows application, choose PDF Writer as your printer. You'll be prompted for a filename, and when prompted give a filename with a .PDF extension. It is important that you give .pdf extension, as the program does NOT add .pdf by default.
19. When a document is printed to a PDF file, a DOS window appears on the desktop while printing is in progress. For large document, the printing may take up to a few minutes so do not close the window. Upon completion, the DOS window will disappear automatically.
References:
1. List of PDF Software by Wikipedia.
2. Creating PDF Files Using Only Available Free Software
3. How To Create PDF Files For Free Under Windows 2000/XP (PDF)
4. Creating PDF's with Free, Open Source and Commercial Apps |
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