By default the setup program will make the installed printer the default printer. However, you can preserve the default printer if you add this parameter to the setup command line. /PRESERVEADVANCEDSETTINGS: User’s advanced printer settings from an earlier install are preserved during installation if this parameter is used. The Bullzip PDF Printer works by creating a virtual printer in the operating systems that prints to PDF files instead of paper. This practically allows any application to create PDF files from the print menu. The virtual printer employs Ghostscript in order to translate the document into the Portable Document Format.
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Portable Document Format files allow you to send information across different computers, cell phones, Web pages and tablet computers so your readers will see what you created on your computer in the same format as when you created it. A PDF printer is a software tool to help you create PDF files. PDF printers are also known as PDF printer drivers, PDF printer utilities, PDF virtual printers, PDF printer converters or PDF printer software.
How to Use
To create a PDF file using a PDF printer, first download and install the software on your computer. Once the PDF printer is installed, you create your document in a word processor or spreadsheet program and save the document as you normally do. Once you have a saved document you want to make into a PDF, you print the file. In your printer dialog box, you change the name of the printer and select the name of the PDF printer software you installed. Instead of printing a hard copy of the file, you print to a PDF. The printer then offers you the options for PDF file creation, creates the PDF file and displays the results in your PDF reader.
PDF Printer Options
While all PDF printers can print a document to PDF, they will not all have the same options for PDF creation. PDF creation options include multimedia format support such as sound, video and graphics, security options like encryption, watermarking, form support and color matching to the original document. You also want to look at how quickly the PDF software can create a complex PDF document with multiple pages, links and graphics.
Retail PDF Printers
Originally, PDF files could only be created by Adobe Acrobat, a PDF creation software. While Adobe Acrobat remains one of the best PDF creation tools since you can print and manipulate PDF documents, it is costly for average users to purchase. There are a number of PDF printers available in the retail market; Nitro Pro, Corel PDF Fusion and PDF Converter Professional are highly rated alternatives to Adobe Acrobat.
Free PDF Printers
You can create also create complex PDFs with forms, graphics, passwords and encryption by using free PDF printers. PDF printer software such as Bullzip PDF Printer, PDF24 Creator and PDFCreator are available free of charge to users and have the same or similar options to the retail packages (see the links in Resources). However, you do need to be careful when downloading and installing free software. Some free software will request that you allow it to make changes in programs or configurations on your computer to make it easier for the software company to download other software you may not want or need. Sometimes, free software packages can contain spyware or adware which gathers information about your computer usage and transmits it to a third party who will use this information for financial gain. Only download free software from reliable sources and be sure to read all the instructions when installing a package on your computer.
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About the Author
Translating technical jargon into everyday English is one of Anni Martin’s specialties. She is an educator and writer who spent over 13 years teaching and creating documentation at the University of Missouri. She holds a Master’s Degree in educational technology as well as Bachelor’s degrees in journalism and political science from the University of Missouri.
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Comstock Images/Comstock/Getty Images
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Martin, Anni. 'What Is a PDF Printer?' Small Business - Chron.com, http://smallbusiness.chron.com/pdf-printer-57986.html. Accessed 21 January 2020.
Martin, Anni. (n.d.). What Is a PDF Printer? Small Business - Chron.com. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/pdf-printer-57986.html
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If you have your own small business, you’ve probably realized the benefits of free software by now! Yes, it’s nice to get a little technical support by buying software from big companies like Microsoft and Adobe, etc, but sometimes price trumps everything.
Frankly, buying Adobe Acrobat for all employees in our company so that they can create PDF files would be a horrible waste of money. There are many high quality programs out there that can be used to generate PDF files for free quickly and easily. Of course, there are not many programs out there that can do what Microsoft Exchange can, so that’s a different story.
But if you’re looking for a simple and elegant solution to creating PDF documents for free and getting the same results as if you were using a commercial application, then check out the following list below of my favorite PDF writers and printers.
Free PDF Creator Apps
1. CutePDF
CutePDF is by far one of the best programs out there for creating PDF documents on the fly. It basically installs as a new Printer on your computer and whenever you want to create a PDF document, just print to the CutePDF printer.
It works on all operating systems from Windows 98 to Windows 10 64-bit edition. It’s fast and generates small PDF files. The other great thing about CutePDF is that it has some advanced features like an API, so that you can integrate PDF creation ability into your custom applications and even into a Citrix or terminal server environment.
2. PrimoPDF
PrimoPDF is another basic PDF creator that is simple to use, but does have an ad in it. It works in the same way as CutePDF, whatever you can print can be converted into a PDF file. The one nice feature it has is that it can create different sized PDFs depending on what you want to use it for: online viewing, eBooks, office printing, and prepress (high-end printing).
You can also combine multiple PDF files and secure your PDF files with passwords. You can also add metadata such as Title, Author, Subject, etc. to the document.
3. Bullzip
Bullzip probably has the most features out of all of the PDF creators listed here. Here is a list of some of the features that you might be interested in: ability to password protect PDF files, ability to encrypt PDF file, ability to add a watermark, ability to merge PDF files, ability to choose output quality, and ability to change the metadata.
It also includes translations in a bunch of other languages, so if you have a company with offices all around the world, this would be a good choice. For the IT people, it can be controlled via the command line and has a COM/ActiveX interface so you can control it programmatically. It works with Windows 10, 8, Vista and XP and server versions of Windows too.
4. doPDF
doPDF is similar to CutePDF in terms of the features it has to offer. It’s a basic PDF creator and gives you the ability to control the output quality, which the other programs do also, but they have more features. Overall, it’s probably not worth using unless you can’t get anything else to work.
It does support 64-bit systems and doesn’t require GhostScript like CutePDF Writer. Also, the PDFs are searchable. Bullzip has the most features, but for some reason does not create searchable documents all the time. It does on some programs like Word, but doesn’t for Excel.
5. PDFCreator
PDFCreator is probably the second best PDF creator on this list in terms of features. It’s not nearly as basic as CutePDF Writer and almost has the same number of features as Bullzip except for 64 bit support and some lacking watermark abilities.
The great thing about PDFCreator is that it also has a server install program that can be setup on your print server and therefore used across the network without having to deploy it to each computer individually. If you don’t need all the features of Bullzip, this might be the best option for a small business network.
6. TinyPDF
TinyPDF is another very basic PDF creator like CutePDF. It’s only good if you want to install something that is very “tiny” and fast. It doesn’t have all the big features like password protection, encryption, metadata editing, etc.
However, it’s super small (586 KB) and converts super fast. It does allow you to append and merge PDF documents and supports large paper size for desktop publishers and CAD engineers. Also, it does create some of the smallest PDF files out of all the programs. It supports Windows XP all the way up to Windows 10.
7. PDF995
Finally, there is PDF995, which allows you to print any document to PDF format for free. It also has a slew of other features, which makes it pretty great. However, I don’t like the fact that it displays advertising if you are using the free version. There are several above that I mentioned that do not display any ads, so PDF995 has some tough competition!
I’m sure there are more programs out there that can create PDFs for free, so if I missed one, please post it in the comments! Enjoy!