Manchester eScholar Services

Supported by John Rylands University Library

How do I ... create a PDF?

Portable Document Format (PDF) is a file format commonly used to distribute documents online because it allows readers on different platforms (e.g. Windows, Mac and UNIX) to view files as originally intended by the author.

The following tutorial videos give instructions on how you can create a PDF from one or more Microsoft Word files using the PDF creation software, PDFCreator 1.0.2.

You can download PDFCreator 1.0.2 for free as it is an open source product. Alternatively, all public PC clusters on the University campus have PDFCreator 0.9.3 pre-installed on them.

Though the tutorial videos demonstrate PDF creation from Microsoft Word files, PDFCreator 1.0.2 will create a PDF file from any programme which will print using a Windows printer.

Create a PDF from Micrsoft Word

Create a Portable Document File (PDF) from Microsoft Word

This video demonstrates how to use PDFCreator 0.9.3 to create a Portable Document Format (PDF) file from one Microsoft Word file.

This demo runs for 56 seconds and requires Adobe Flash v5 or higher.

If you are off campus or using a non-public/faculty PC cluster machine then you can use one of the many PDF conversion services that are available to download from the web.

Below are some recommended PDF conversion services,

PDFCreator 1.0.2 - this is the same PDF conversion tool that is pre-installed on all public and faculty PC clusters across the University campus (version 0.9.3 is installed on campus). It will create PDFs from any programme which will print to a windows printer. It is free to download and use.

Adobe Acrobat PDF online - the market leading PDF converter tool. The Adobe PDF Converter tool is an online conversion tool which will create high quality PDFs from any Windows application. Requires monthly subscription fee.

Docmorph - a document conversion tool which can convert over 50 file types to PDF. Docmorph is free to download and use.

The University of Manchester is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.