Simple PDF Creation

Most people are familiar with Adobe Acrobat Reader, which creates read-only PDF files (PDF stands for "Portable Document Format"). PDF is the de-facto standard for transmitting documents to another person when you would prefer that the content be unable to be changed. The format also allows for password protection and the combining of documents, too, although you will need the Adobe Acrobat creation software for that.

The free PDFCreator application for Windows installs as a printer driver and appears among your list of printers. When you want to create a PDF to email off to a contact, hit File, Print in your application and choose the PDFCreator menu option. It will pop up a dialog where you can enter some information about the file you're creating. You can also choose to email from the dialog, or save the PDF in one of your documents folders.

A very positive advantage of saving as a PDF is that the file you send is read-only, as mentioned earlier; another is that the file will look exactly as it did when you created it in Word or OpenOffice - so if the person you're sending it too doesn't have the same fonts as you do, the file will still look exactly the same.