# Adobe Acrobat freeware equivalent **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 15, 2004, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-acrobat-freeware-equivalent/245280 "2004-05-15T15:26:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![D.E.S.K.Top668](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f07891/32.png) [@D.E.S.K.Top668](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D.E.S.K.Top668)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2004, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-acrobat-freeware-equivalent/245280/1 "2004-05-15T15:26:51Z")
I’m a real cheapskate when it comes to buying software. I’ve found that for almost any commercial software, there’s freeware that does the same thing. One I haven’t found yet is something that creates pdf-type documents. It doesn’t have to be a common format; it’s going to be used to assemble old (self-made) comics onto my computer once they’ve been scanned. They’re unlikely to released so compatibility with other people’s computers isn’t an issue. Simplicity would be a plus. Does anybody know of such a program? Thanks in advance - DESK ---
**Author:** ![kellner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c2a13f/32.png) [@kellner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kellner)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2004, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-acrobat-freeware-equivalent/245280/2 "2004-05-15T15:31:22Z")
PDFCreator might do what you want: [http://sector7g.wurzel6.de/pdfcreator/index\_en.htm](http://sector7g.wurzel6.de/pdfcreator/index_en.htm) It is basically a printer driver that prints to a pdf file. You can create your program with any program you like. As long as it can print, this gives you a pdf document. ---
**Author:** ![daffyduck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ec9cab/32.png) [@daffyduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/daffyduck)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2004, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-acrobat-freeware-equivalent/245280/3 "2004-05-15T15:35:39Z")
Since compatibility is one of the main reasons for using the .pdf format, it would help if you said which features you do want. Here is a freeware text editor that supports the Rich Text Fomat that will allow you to put pictures in a text document if that is what you need. [Jarte](http://www.jarte.com/) ---
**Author:** ![Early\_Out](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Early\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Early_Out)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2004, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-acrobat-freeware-equivalent/245280/4 "2004-05-15T15:58:58Z")
Here’s another PDF creation package (freeware) that operates as a printer driver: [http://www.pdf995.com/](http://www.pdf995.com/). If you can print it, you can make a PDF file from it. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2004, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-acrobat-freeware-equivalent/245280/5 "2004-05-15T17:50:09Z")
I agree about PDF995. Just the thing if you need to make a few PDF files but don’t want to pay for Acrobat. It’s actually using Adobe technology – it’s an version of Acrobat that Adobe is no longer making. You have to see an ad every time you make a file, but that’s a small price to pay. ---
**Author:** ![Zcrysis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zcrysis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zcrysis)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2004, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-acrobat-freeware-equivalent/245280/6 "2004-05-15T17:57:08Z")
Alternatively, [Open Office](http://www.openoffice.org/) also lets you create PDF files from its main save as prompt. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2004, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-acrobat-freeware-equivalent/245280/7 "2004-05-15T23:38:19Z")
As an alternative for totally graphics files, you could save it as a multi page tiff file. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2004, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-acrobat-freeware-equivalent/245280/8 "2004-05-16T00:23:41Z")
I used PDF Creator once, and it worked quite well for me. I wanted to save a soft copy of my tax return, but in a standard doc format readable by anything else. First, I printed to a .ps postscript file. It was 400 megabytes! Then I used PDF Creator, and it made pdf file that was like 40k (and yes, it was perfectly readable). ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2004, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-acrobat-freeware-equivalent/245280/9 "2004-05-16T02:15:43Z")
The old traditional one was GhostScript, which has a “PS2PDF” command. You would print to a raw postscript file, using a printer driver for any PostScript printer and selecting “print to file”; then you’d crank up GhostScript to convert it to PDF. Freeware, ported from Unix. PDFCreator is probably easier. On other platforms: MacOS 9 users tend to flock to Print2PDF by the same person who wrote the famous Print2Pict driver. (Dave Warker, possibly?). I think that one’s shareware. As with the Windows platform, Mac users can also obtain GhostScript and print using the LaserWriter driver and saving as a raw PostScript file & converting with GhostScript for free. Under MacOS X, printing to PDF is built-in to the OS. ---
**Author:** ![Rex\_Fenestrarum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rex_fenestrarum/32/7265_2.png) [@Rex\_Fenestrarum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rex_Fenestrarum)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2004, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-acrobat-freeware-equivalent/245280/10 "2004-05-16T02:23:16Z")
I’m not a big fan of PDF995, as it’s ad-supported and hijacks your web browser to display ads. Of course, they tell you it’s gonna do that when you download the software, but I would have preferred that it use it’s own ad window or something instead of using an IE window that I already have open. Plus, I’ve used PDF995 on two machines and it seems to sto pworking after 4-5 documents and needs to be reinstalled. PDFCreator works much better and doesn’t have any ads. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2004, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-acrobat-freeware-equivalent/245280/11 "2004-05-16T02:53:18Z")
I use Zeon Docucom, available from [http://www.zeon.com.tw](http://www.zeon.com.tw), and am quite satisfied with it. It’s similare to pdf995, in that it installs as a printer driver, and then any program that has a print function can produce a pdf file. It’s not freeware, but the price is reasonable ($49, as I remember). There is a free trial version available for downloading. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2004, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-acrobat-freeware-equivalent/245280/12 "2004-05-16T02:55:42Z")
> [@Revtim](#): > > First, I printed to a .ps postscript file. It was 400 megabytes! > > Then I used PDF Creator, and it made pdf file that was like 40k (and yes, it was perfectly readable). Unsurprising. The Portable Document Format is a subset of PostScript and is always presented to the end user as a compressed text file (as opposed to PostScript, which is usually uncompressed ASCII). > [@AHunter3](#): > > Under MacOS X, printing to PDF is built-in to the OS. How deeply? Is it in the Darwin kernel or is it in some ancillary library? (I hope it isn’t in the kernel itself: Microsoft provides an object lesson in why keeping kernel space small and limited to essential OS tasks is a very good idea, performance be damned.) (I ask because the ancestral NeXT machines used PostScript as a screen definition language.) ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2004, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-acrobat-freeware-equivalent/245280/13 "2004-05-16T05:33:09Z")
[QUOTE=Derleth (I hope it isn’t in the kernel itself: Microsoft provides an object lesson in why keeping kernel space small and limited to essential OS tasks is a very good idea, performance be damned.)[/QUOTE] Certainly true. But it was known by many others, long before Microsoft even existed. For example, Fred Brooks, designer of the OS/360 operating system for Mainframes (introduced in 1964) mentions in his 1975 book “The Mythical Man-Month” that it was a mistake to include in the kernal code to automatically handle year-end changeovers during leap years. It uses up 26 bytes of resident code, which he considers an excessive waste! ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2004, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-acrobat-freeware-equivalent/245280/14 "2004-05-16T18:36:23Z")
**Derleth** : > [@](#): > > Originally Posted by **AHunter3** > > > [@](#): > > > > Under MacOS X, printing to PDF is built-in to the OS. > > How deeply? Is it in the Darwin kernel or is it in some ancillary library? (I hope it isn’t in the kernel itself: Microsoft provides an object lesson in why keeping kernel space small and limited to essential OS tasks is a very good idea, performance be damned.) I’m almost positive it’s the “Aqua” screen-display layer — Aqua is itself based on PDF, which (as you know) is a variation on PostScript, as is Display PostScript which (as you said) was used in NeXT. I don’t know the details of why they switched from Display PostScript to PDF, might’ve been greater convenience and compatibility or might have been something to do with licensing. I doubt that “printing to PDF” is built into the kernel. You can probably print to PDF from a command-line app, but you’d need to go at it the hard way (referencing other command-line utilities that let you print to PostScript and then using GhostScript to convert to PDF or something like that). ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-acrobat-freeware-equivalent/245280/15 "2004-05-17T03:29:13Z")
**[t-bonham@scc.net](mailto:t-bonham@scc.net)**, you have completely misconstrued me. Microsoft has placed parts of its IIS server in kernel space for efficiency reasons, even though it gives Nimda and other cracks kernel-level permissions when they get through the security. Apache, on the other hand, runs in userland (and rather unprivileged at that), so Apache cracks get you, at most, a small user account. BTW, I have a copy of _The Mythical Man-Month_. Can you give me the section and/or page that comment appears? **AHunter3** : Interesting indeed. I suspected it was a connection to NeXT one way or another. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-acrobat-freeware-equivalent/245280/16 "2004-05-17T22:41:28Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > **[t-bonham@scc.net](mailto:t-bonham@scc.net)**, you have completely misconstrued me. Well, I didn’t intend to construe you any way. Actually, I think we agree on this. > [@Derleth](#): > > BTW, I have a copy of _The Mythical Man-Month_. Can you give me the section and/or page that comment appears? No, sorry, I read it years ago, and don’t have a copy on hand to find the page. It was in a part where Fred looked back on decisions made during the OS/360 design, and discussed which loked right or wrong based on years of experience. I think this was a foreword, and may have been an addition to later editions of the book, possibly starting with the 20th Anniversary edition (circa mid-1990’s). If your copy is earlier than that, it may not be there at all. Search the web and you will find parts of it quoted, but I don’t know of anywhere that has the complete text online.