Most of you are probably familiar with Adobe Acrobat Reader. This application can be downloaded for free and gives the user the ability to read and print documents in a standard format no matter what application was used to create the original. The PDF file format has become an Internet standard for disseminating information because the free reader has met wide acceptance and the file compression makes it a desirable electronic format.

What some of you might not know is that it is fairly easy to create your own PDF file. Adobe Acrobat writer installs a print driver on you computer. When you want to create a PDF file, print to the Acrobat printer. It will prompt you for a file name and then save your file as PDF file to share with colleagues. The bad news is that this product starts at $299 per user.   Adobe Acrobat Reader (FREE)

PDF Alternative

The good news is that there is a good application for creating PDF files called PDF995. You can download a full-featured free version or pay $9.95 to avoid viewing advertising. Although it may not have the features of Adobe Acrobat writer, in my unscientific testing, it did an excellent job of creating PDF files from a variety of office documents and web pages.

Using the free version, I noticed that Spybot did not detect any spyware to slow my system down. I also noticed that the PDF document was a slightly larger file that the one created with Adobe.

There you have it. If you're looking for a way to create PDFs and Acrobat is slightly out of your budget, PDF995 is the perfect alternative!