Create PDF files from ANY program as simple as hitting PRINT. (Free or Cheap)
Written: Nov 19 '06 (Updated Nov 19 '06)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Cheap fast PDF creation
Cons: NAG ware, unless you pay the name sake $9.95
The Bottom Line: Everyone should have a PDF writer on their computer, but since most cost $50 or more almost nobody does. This is a high quality product at low or no cost.
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| jckatz's Full Review: Software995 PDF995 PDF Creator |
I have been using PDF995 for a year or so before I decided it was worth $9.95. Believe it or not, I would have paid them $13 long ago, had it been “Free Ware” and not “Nagware” When I find free ware that I use and like I send a donation of $13 to the author, but I didn’t use PDF995 that much and it was NAG Ware or AD-supported Ware so I didn’t see the need to send them money.
I shall begin my review talking about what is PDF995 the AD-WARE version.
PDF995 is a PDF print driver. After installation PDF 995 is a driver in your PRINTER FOLDER in Windows. If you select PRINT in ANY program you will have the choice of printers. If you don’t want to print to paper, than pull down the menu and select PDF 995. After you hit PRINT you will have a dialog box asking where do you want to save the file (and a file name) the file name default is the same default save as would have.
While this is all happening a screen pops up (using the internet explorer engine), telling you about other 995 products. 99% of the time I print to paper since only once in a while I’ll create a PDF I ignored the nag ads and was happy with the quality of the PDF995 product.
PAST USEAGES :
I had an incident with my car. I took photographs with my SLR camera and had them developed at Walgreen’s 30 minutes or less and had the CD made of the images. I then added the photos to my Yahoo account and used PRINT FOLDER option, instead of printing to paper (since I had the originals, I printed to PDF and was able to e-mail the photos to my lawyer, the businesses insurance company, and my insurance company). My insurance company told me I had a 70% of getting it paid for by the business, my lawyer told me I had an 80% change of winning in small claims, their insurance company offered me 60% of the damage. I took my money and ran.
Also if I found an article I liked on a subscription web site, instead of e-mailing the link I would print a PDF of the page and e-mail it, saving the person that trouble of logging in.
But that was about it, a little nagging for a once a week usage was OK with me.
Why I upgraded:
So I happened I was working on a political campaign, and the office I was working out of was insane (it was a local party office) and HUGE!!!!!! Only problem, well not ONLY problem, but the only problem that relates to THIS article was. . . They had a wonderful printer, old reliable, fast (150 Pages per minute). Connected to a computer that was NONE of these, well it was OLD. But it was neither reliable nor fast. It was also connecting to a free city wide wireless network. At first to print we would switch both computers to a wireless router, and all would be well. Then the computer stopped connecting to ANY network, and the printer was useless to me. No other computer had LPT ports so the only solution is print what you need to PDF, save it on your flash drive and run it across the room (37 steps) to the computer with the printer.
I can literally say I printed 100 of pages of PDF’s a day, so paying $9.95 to get rid of the nag screen BARGIN! I found it was even faster to print a BMP to a PDF than it was to PRINT the BMP directly to the printer. I need to make 5 copies of each BMP so I just saved them all to a large PDF and told the PDF to print 5 copies.
Controls
Unlike other PDF writers you don’t have MUCH control over this one. This is good and bad. Other PDF writers when you select print before it asks you where you want to save it asks you HOW you want it saved. Resolution, color, etc. This doesn’t ask those questions but you CAN control them. Under Print Properties and ADVANCE, you have all the controls you need.
File just going to be read on the computer screens then you don’t need 600 DPI lower and see if it works for you.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
jckatz
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Member: Joe Katz
Location: chicago
Reviews written: 153
Trusted by: 74 members
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