What’s the best way to make a PDF from Word?

By Lori DeFurio – July 23, 2006

 

What is the best method to create PDFs from MSWord? Why is the PDF version of my Word document formatted differently that the original Word layout?

MS Word will reformat your document based on the printer driver. When you select Print to PDF, it is using the Adobe PDF printer driver to reformat the job. First, you will need to change the printer for this job from your physical printer to Adobe PDF. This will take care of the formatting. However, Acrobat will use the default page size to "print" the file. Therefore, the next step is to create a custom PDF Page Size.

Figure 1: Adobe PDF Properties dialog box.

1. On Windows: select Start > Printers and Faxes. Select Adobe PDF and select File > Properties. Select Printing Preferences from the General tab.

2. Select Adobe PDF Settings tab.

3. Select "Add" for PDF Page Size and create a page called "4x6" that is 4 x 6 in size.

4. Then when you print your job and select Adobe PDF – select Properties – and select 4x6 from the drop-down list.