How to Print to a PDF File on Windows Vista
I was printing off receipts from Newegg and other sites where I've purchased things from when the thought occurred to me: It would save a lot of paper if I could just print all of them to a PDF file instead, which I could then store in nicely organized folders instead of having paper copies everywhere. So how exactly do we print to a PDF in Vista?
The answer is a freeware utility called CutePDF Writer, and if you can stand rebooting your computer twice (painful) then you can get it installed without a lot of trouble. The great thing about this utility is that it even works in Vista 64-bit, while many of the other utilities do not. Update: You can also use the freeware doPDF writer for a less messy installation.
Installing CutePDF Writer
There are actually two pieces to the installation… you'll need to first install Ghostscript (provided on the download site itself), which is the engine that actually will convert the printer output into a PDF. Installing it is simple enough…
At the end you'll get a dialog asking if the program installed correctly. Make sure to click "This program installed correctly".
The next step should be to install CutePDF itself, but unfortunately it cannot be installed while UAC is enabled. What we'll have to do is disable UAC, reboot, install CutePDF, and then re-enable UAC and reboot once again.
Update
It looks like most people are able to install this application without any issues at all, so your best best is to run the installer, and hopefully it will work. If it doesn't, then you can follow the instructions for disabling UAC.
Open up Control Panel, find User Accounts, and then click the link for "Turn User Account Control (UAC) on or off"
Now uncheck the box, click OK, and then reboot your computer.
Now start the CutePDF installation, which should only take a couple of clicks.
Important: Go back in and re-enable UAC using the same mechanism as above, just make sure to check the box. At this point you should be all done.
Using CutePDF Writer
Creating a PDF is as simple as clicking the Print button in any application in Windows, and then choose CutePDF Writer as the printer.
If you click on Properties, you can turn off color, which should reduce the size of the files by a ton as long as you don't mind black & white.
There are even more settings behind the Advanced button, like quality options, compression, or even the option to embed fonts in the PDF or not.
You'll be prompted to choose a filename, and then you can view your printed page as a PDF document:
This really works well for printing receipts, or even for printing an article to PDF for later reading offline.
For extra credit, you can save any Office 2007 document as a PDF with a native plugin.
Update: Easier Install Method
Carlo noted in the comments that you could alternately use the also free doPDF software, which has a much simpler installation, but doesn't have support for converting to black & white, or any of the really advanced features in CutePDF.
Using it works exactly the same, just choose it from the print dialog. You can adjust the scaling and resolution options as well from the properties screen.
So you've got your choice of apps to pick from. I'm going to stick with CutePDF, but there's nothing wrong with doPDF either. Enjoy!
Download doPDF free PDF Converter
or
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Actually I dont understand, why you should install a PDF writer, for the purpose you mentioned ("It would save a lot of paper …"). Why dont you just use the installed Microsoft XPS Document Writer? For saving a "printer version" of a document only, this works very well …
Have I mentioned, that I like less programs on my PC
@chabis
Sure, you could use the XPS writer, but then you can't really send the documents to anybody and expect them to be readable. With PDF, you can be pretty confident that people will be able to open it and it will look the same, even if they are using Linux or a Mac.
This is a unusually long way to install pdf support on a windows pc. Shame on you howtogeek… an easier way is to install doPDF. WAY faster.
Just my 2c worth
@Carlo
That's a good point. I'll add that to the post.
I use XP and use Primo PDF which works beautifully.
Digressing slightly,
If I print something to PDF using primo PDF from Safari, the output is not very proper… the characters looks kinda hazy. Looks like the issue is with Safari and its rendering, as primoPDF works well with everything else as far as my usage goes.
Who said you cannot install it with UAC enabled? You can easily do so..
You must have faced some peculiar error, try it on any other of your computers.
Another good choice would be Bullzip PDF Printer. I don't know CutePDF's capabilities, but Bullzip is pretty feature-rich.
I agree with Carlo, though I normally go with PrimoPDF. Maybe not so filled with options, but does the job (printing, i. e., converting to PDF) just right.
Well, I installed CutePDF without disabling UAC without encountering any problems!
both of these are really good…but i would dopdf is better than cutepdf writer
@geek
This is absolutly correct! That's why I said "for the purpose you mentioned …", because only for saving a (web) document on my computer, I would definitly NOT install the program
By the way: If you use Vista and MS Office 2007 the easiest way is to install the free Microsoft "Save as PDF Add-On" and use this tool for creating PDF files. OpenOffice also allows to save as PDF, with or without Vista …
I was completely unable to install with UAC enabled… in fact the software itself popped up with a message saying that UAC needs to be disabled in order to work.
Perhaps that message only happens on 64-bit Vista? Going to test now…
I've since tested on another machine, and was able to install without disabling UAC, which is odd at best. I've updated the article to reflect that, so my apologies for the overly long instructions.
I have been using PDF Creator (http://www.pdfforge.org/products/pdfcreator) for a long time now. It is Open Source and it does a great job. Now, I don't know how it compares with CutePDF and doPDF.
Hi,
I am looking for a pdf-print utility as doPDF but also able to create Tagged PDF, for accessibility purpose.
For the moment I use OpenOffice, but it is very heavy to open or copy/paste the content into openoffice then convert it to pdf.
Does somebody knows about such a tool ?
Thanks,
J.
CutePDF should install if the user right-clicks on the installation file, then selects Run As Administrator. You've already supplied permission, so it should proceed without further intervention.
Just a note - doPDF does NOT embed fonts in the PDF files! I ran into an issue where I had printed an Excel spreadsheet done in the Calibri font and sent it to my friend on a Mac, and all he got was the colored lines of the spreadsheet.
CutePDF, on the other hand, DOES embed fonts.
We use PDF 995 here at the office, and it is small and works great. I'll have to compare it with some of the others mentioned here.
I second the mention of PDFCreator. I've done some side-by-side quality comparisons, and CutePDF's quality is quite bad compared to PDFCreator. Fuzziness, weird issues with margins (especially when using CutePDF to print web pages to pdf), "white noise" and artifacts…
Maybe it was an older version of CutePDF I was using, though. But PDFCreator has a much more polished and professional feel to it, and prints great quality.
As to whether PDFCreator runs on Vista, I'm not sure (I use XP).
PDF Creator does run on Vista. The updated version was released in Dec 2007. The file size is slightly larger than the ones created by Adobe Acrobat Professional. But overall PDF Creator seems to be great.
You can do it that way… or you can just install Open Office, open your document, and save it as a PDF file; just as chabis said…
Personally, I just save my receipts in a .mhtml file. Much easier than saving it in a .pdf file, in all honesty.
Doesn't mhtml restrict your viewing audience just like XPS Document Writer? Does Safari support MHTML?
Www.pdfforge.org Makes PDFCreator. I have used it for years on XP, and for over a year onVista. It is an easy install and has many features.
+1 for PDF Creator.
And you can also give password protection to the PDF file.
I use Foxit PDF Creator. Simple to use, quick, and lightweight.
I use cutePDF extensively and love it however you can save a step in the install process, if you download just the cutepdf installer, it will ask then download the ghostscript program from within its own installer, saving you one extra step
My Adobe Acrobat 8.0 software works fine when I want to read or download PDF files, but does not let me PRINT PDF files. (It refuses to acknowledge that the print spooler is running). Adobe Reader prints fine, but I cannot install Reader and Acrobat at the same time, and I need to use Acrobat to access files at certain sites. Can you recommend some program that will just read/print PDF files that are already created? I tried cutePDF and PDFReader but they try to re-convert a PDF file to PDF again and do not do a good job. I just need a reader/printer like Adobe Reader.
I love that you are helping people this way.
I installed the doPDF and it is great unless I am trying to "print" from the internet. Vista overrides where I selected the pdf to be saved, and says that it is saving it instead in Temporary Internet Files. Not only is this inconvienent, but when I click to go to it, it isn't there.
Help?
Thanks, Jeanette