FAQ - How do I create a pdf file of my paper?

What is pdf?

Pdf − Portable Document Format − is a page description format developed and owned by Adobe. It is a compressed and adapted version of postscript. Pdf files have a much smaller size than the corresponding postscript files.

To view pdf files you need Acrobat Reader. If this is not installed on your system then Windows and UNIX versions may be downloaded free of charge from the Adobe website http://www.adobe.com. Under UNIX you may also use xpdf to view pdf files. Recent versions of Ghostview (UNIX) and GSView (Windows) also support pdf.

Pdf files are binary files, so make sure that you use the right setting when you transmit them by ftp.

How do I create a pdf file of my Windows document?

To convert your Windows document (such as an MS Word document) into a pdf file you need Adobe Acrobat. This is a commercial product. Acrobat 5 and later come with the Distiller printer driver and with PDFMaker for Word. Earlier versions of Adobe Acrobat supported pdfwriter, which is no longer recommended.

The instructions below may vary slightly according to the version of Acrobat that you are using.

If you wish to use PDFMaker for MS Word to create a pdf file from your Word document  then follow these steps:

  • Open your document in Word
  • Select the Acrobat/Change conversion settings menu item
  • In Select conversion settings choose "Print", and click on the button "Edit conversion settings"
  • Under the tab "Fonts", make sure that the boxes "Embed all fonts" and "Subset embedded fonts" are checked. This ensures that your pdf document may be properly viewed and printed on other systems
  • If you changed any Distiller settings, save the new settings under a suitable name and use these settings. Click OK to return to the Word main window
  • Click on the "Convert to Adobe PDF" icon to convert the Word document to PDF

To use Adobe Distiller follow these steps:

  • Open your document in the appropriate Windows application (such as MS Word)
  • Select the File/Print menu item
  • Select Acrobat Distiller from the list of printers
  • Click on the button "Properties",   and choose the Adobe PDF settings tab
  • In Select conversion settings choose "Print", and click on the button "Edit conversion settings"
  • Under the tab "Fonts", make sure that the boxes "Embed all fonts" and "Subset embedded fonts" are checked. This ensures that your pdf document may be properly viewed and printed on other systems
  • If you changed any Distiller settings, save the new settings under a suitable name and use these settings. Click OK to return to the Print menu
  • Click OK to print the document. Alter the file name as needed, and make sure to which folder the file is written

Lately several other products besides Acrobat have become available to create pdf documents.

Scientific Workplace users beware

If you create a pdf document from your SWP TeX file then make sure that all fonts are embedded in the pdf file. If you do not use this option then the pdf document will not look the way you expect it to and the equations will not be readable on computers that do not have the SWP fonts installed. See the Technical Support Knowledgebase of MacKichan Software at http://www.mackichan.com/

How do I convert a Postscript file to a pdf file on my Windows PC?

These are several ways to convert a postscript file to a pdf file on a Windows PC:

  1. Use Adobe Acrobat Distiller. This is part of the Adobe Acrobat package.
    • Open Distiller
    • In Settings/Job options/Fonts check the boxes "Embed all fonts" and "Subset embedded fonts" for maximal portability
    • Open the ps file
    • Save the pdf file to the desired folder
  2. Use GSview (4.1 or later)
    • Open the postscript file in GSview
    • Open the File/Convert menu item
    • Select PDFwriter from the "Device" list. Click on All pages
    • Click on OK to create the file
  3. If you have MiKTeX installed then you may use the command ps2pdf.

How do I create a quality pdf file of my LaTeX document under Windows or UNIX?

Under Windows, quality pdf files may be created using a recent version of the distribution MiKTeX of TeX. Under UNIX, quality pdf files may be created using a recent version of the teTeX distribution of TeX. 

With both distributions, first prepare the dvi file, and then use these commands:

dvips -Ppdf -G0 mypaper.dvi
ps2pdf mypaper.ps

Do not omit the two options from the dvips command. If necessary you may include the additional option -tA4 or -tLetter in the dvips command to control the paper size.

In both distributions there also exists the command

pdflatex mypaper.tex

but this does not always work reliably.

Recent versions of ghostview (UNIX, distributed with ghostscript) and GSView (Windows) can also read and display pdf files.

Good resolution of documents produced from LaTeX may also be achieved by using standard postscript fonts instead of Computer Modern fonts. To this end, insert a command such as \usepackage{times} or \usepackage{mathptm} in the preamble of the LaTeX2e source file. This also makes the pdf files much smaller.

Free conversion to pdf on the web: ps2pdf.com and goBCL.com

There are various sites on the worldwide web that offer free conversion to pdf.

  • GoBCL.com at www.goBCL.com offers free conversion of MS Word documents to pdf.
  • Ps2pdf.com at www.ps2pdf.com converts postscript files to pdf.
Last revised on 2005-09-30