Creating PDF Files

Creating a PDF file has now become easier than ever. With Acrobat Professional, you can create a PDF from one file, many different files, a web page or pages, scanned images, or Microsoft Office applications, with one button click.

Create a PDF from a File

Create a PDF from a file by choosing File, Create PDF, From File. You can also choose From File from the pop-up menu in the menu bar. Then simply find the file on your computer and choose Open. When you open the file, to make it into a PDF, you must save the file. The file types you can open in Acrobat to create a PDF are BMP, CompuServe GIF, HTML, JPEG, JPEG 2000, Microsoft Word, PCX, PNG, PostScript/EPS, text file, and TIFF.

Did you Know?

To create a PDF from multiple files, choose From Multiple Files from the pop-up choices in the Create PDF button on the Tasks toolbar. This launches the Create PDF from Multiple Documents dialog box. Under the Add Files area, click the Choose button to select your files. You can do this multiple times to get all of your files if they aren't in the same folder. If they are in the same folder but are not contiguous, hold the Command (Ctrl) key to select the noncontiguous files. When the files are selected, you can arrange them in the Files to Combine area by dragging and dropping them in the order you want (see Figure 10.6). You can also change the order in Acrobat. Then click OK to bind all the pages in one PDF file. Remember to save the combined pages.

Figure 10.6. rearrange the files you added in the Files to Combine area.

Create a PDF from Microsoft Applications

One valuable feature is one-click PDF creation from Microsoft applications. In Internet Explorer, go to the website you want to convert to a PDF, and click the Convert Current Web Page to PDF File button. This launches the Convert Web Page to PDF dialog box. Enter a name for the PDF file and click the Save button to convert the current web page to a PDF. In Microsoft Office applications, the Convert to Adobe PDF button is in its own toolbar. If the Convert to Adobe PDF button isn't showing, find it under View, Toolbars, Adobe Acrobat PDFMaker.

Create a PDF from a Web Page

Downloading a web page or a whole website into Acrobat is an easy task. Choose how many levels (children pages or tiers) of the website you want to download, or download more later and add the pages to your PDF. Create a PDF from a web page by choosing From Web Page from the Create PDF button in the menu bar, or choose From Web Page from the submenu of the Create PDF command under the File menu.

When creating a PDF from a web page, make sure you have the URL ready to enter in the URL text field. You can also set how many levels of the website you want to convert (see Figure 10.7). Keep in mind that if you choose to convert the whole website or many levels of the website, the result could be a huge PDF file. You can convert HTML pages that include forms, links, frames, Flash, graphics with JPEG or GIF, tables, and text files into PDF pages.

Figure 10.7. Enter the web address and the number of levels you want to convert to a PDF.

By the Way

Most websites are built hierarchically in different levels. You might have certain links on a home page, which constitutes one layer, but clicking on any of those links could reveal a whole new set of links, which would be another level deeper into the site.

After the web page is converted into a PDF file (see Figure 10.8), you can edit and enhance as you see fit.

Figure 10.8. A website converted into a PDF document.