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PDFs and Office 2007

One capability that every Word or Office user should have is the ability to save files as PDFs. You could use PDF files whenever you are sharing documents with someone who would not need to edit what you send them. What saving a file to a PDF does is generate a “picture” of your file: the text is all there, the graphics, tables, everything is there, but nothing can be moved, edited or changed by the receiver. They see exactly what you originally made. PDFs do not require the receiver to have the same software that you have in order to view a file. You could use PDFs to send resumes, mass-mailings, newsletters, Holiday letters, anything. PDFs are easily viewed through web pages or sent in emails.

In my opinion, the Office 2007 PDF converter generates a large PDF file, probably double the size of a PDF file generated from a free stand-alone converter. Using the Minimum size option in the Office 2007 converter can leave you with some ugly graphics. But, if file size isn’t an issue, or you are in a situation where you can’t download a free converter, the Office 2007 PDF converter is a legitimate alternative.

Saving as PDF

You may have to download and install the PDF converter add-in. Download the MS Office PDF converter here. (It will require that you validate your copy of MS Office.) Once you download the SaveAsPDFandXPS.exe, double-click to install it. It will add the Save as PDF option to Word, Excel, Access and the other MS Office programs that support it.

Saving a Word file as a PDF

Saving as a PDF will not change anything in your original file. If you change the original after saving the PDF, you would need to re-save the original as PDF again.

1. Open the file you want to convert to PDF in Word.
2. Click the Office button, point to Save As, click Save as PDF or XPS.
3. Save As box opens, so you could give your PDF a different name than the originating file.
4. Click OK to finish.

PDF Options

• It’s probably not a bad idea to run the Inspect document feature (Office button, Prepare) before you save a file as a PDF in order to ensure no sensitive information is saved in the PDF. The exception might be the Document Properties: see below for more info.
• The Save As box also has an Options button to the right of the file name box. This gives you some choices over what to include with your PDF file.
• If the PDF is fairly long, and you used header styles or bookmarks in your Word document, the headers or bookmarks could be used for navigation in the PDF file.
• Checking Document properties would keep the document property data in the PDF. This could be important to include, as it can include the author/organization name, keywords and more. Take a look at and change your document properties by clicking the Office button, Prepare, click Properties. Be sure to look in Document Properties, Advanced Properties button to see all the available properties.

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