Here is another topic that comes up every now and then: How can I “talk” to Adobe Acrobat from e.g. MS Excel via VBA? I’ll try to give an introduction into that subject in this document. I will only discuss the basics, but I’m open for suggestions about what part to discuss next. So keep the comments coming.
More after the jump…
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I get this question every now and then: What is the best free PDF creator? If all you want to do is to create a PDF file every now and then, the full Adobe Acrobat is overkill and way to expensive. There are cheaper solutions, but free is always better than cheap…
I don’t know what “the best” solution is, but I’ve looked at a bunch of them, and I know which one of those I consider the best for my purposes: The PDF generator that’s built right into the Mac’s print dialog.
Ah, the question was meant about Windows… In that case, I would recommend PrimoPDF. The software recently got acquired by NitroPDF, and these people know PDF.
I’ve recommended PrimoPDF since it first appeared on the scene in 2004, and I’ve never heard any complaints.
So, if you need to create PDF documents, and you don’t care about all the other (really excellent) features of Adobe Acrobat, give PrimoPDF a try.
And, if you need less expensive alternative to Adobe Acrobat, give their NitroPDF application a chance. I don’t have much first hand experience with it, but I keep on hearing good things about it.
As I wrote earlier, the Enfocus Browser – one of my favorite PDF tools – was taken off the Enfocus web page. It looks like the reason was not that Enfocus no longer wanted to distribute the tool, but that they were working on a new version: The new and improved version 3.0 can now be downloaded from their site:
http://www.enfocus.com/product.php?id=4530
I did some research on why and how visitors come to my site. One interesting finding is that a number of people are searching for information about PDF content streams. Here is the list of the 50 most common Google searches that contain the string “content”:
Earlier today I received the latest copy of the AUC News in my email. It contained a link and a short description of a technique called “Thinking outside of the Page”. As we all know, thinking outside of the bun can be interesting, but what the heck is thinking outside of the page? So, my curiosity was peaked, and I clicked on the link to the Meeting Notes of the Dallas Acrobat User Group, but still I did not know what the whole “outside of the page” was about, but this page at least contained a link to a PDF file. This file contains a lot of examples, and a tutorial about how to create these effects. Wow!
Take a look, it’s hard to describe, but you can create PDF pages that contain images that jump out of the page… Very cool.
Have you ever wondered about what’s in a PDF file? I don’t mean the content, but how information is actually stored in a PDF document. There is of course the PDF Reference that will explain in excruciating details how a PDF file is structured, but even after reading the whole document several times, it is still necessary to look at actual PDF content to make some sense of the now over 13MB large file.
There are a number of tools available that provide allow you to look into a PDF file: Continue reading
I am keeping a list of Acrobat related blogs. I do – of course – have these in my Google Reader configuration, but it’s handy to keep this list around.
If the information you found on my site helped you to solve a problem, please consider to hire me for your next PDF related project. If you just want to say “Thank You” for the tips and tricks I provided, you can leave a tip via PayPal (starting at $1):
