PDF Creation

[Bosey]

I am really hoping some one can help me out here. I have been tasked with creating a simple PDF document. I have made it using Abiword (Effectively, MSWord but worse and free) and then converted it to PDF using one of the many sites available.

My problem is that every time I convert to PDF - Everything moves. Pictures, Text etc all move slightly which has the knock on effect of screwing up the contents / page numbering etc..

Any ideas why this is happening and how to stop it? Or any one have and better ways of creating the PDF document?

[pauld]

OpenOffice/LibreOffice (openoffice.org/www.libreoffice.org) has a "Save as PDF" and can import MS Word docs, so save your AbiWord doc as MS Word, open it in OpenOffice/LibreOffice, export to PDF, job done.

Oh and either one (they're basically the same but they forked into two separate projects about a year ago when Oracle bought Sun - Oracle now owns OpenOffice while most of the original devs went to the LibreOffice fork) is a much better MS Word/Office replacement than AbiWord so in future I'd use them to create the content too. Unless you really like some aspect of AbiWord but it sounds like you're not that keen.

[Bosey]

Abiword also has a save as pdf feature but it just throws everything out of alignment and makes the contents page inaccurate as well as making the document itself look poor. Im not sure why it does it.

I have also done this using googledocs and printed to a pdf - similar results.

Openoffice did the same thing as abiword.

Very frustrating as it is such a simple document.

Is there no software specifically for creation of PDF documents?

[Simon Pieman]

You can install a pdf printer so when you go to print it'll show as a printer and when you print using that it will convert and allow you to save as a pdf. I probably haven't explained it well but it works.

Bullzip is good and free.

[Bosey]

All of the solutions work well for creating the document from a word / similar format but the problem still remains that Logos, Text, Images etc always seem to re shuffle when converted (be it through any method) to PDF.

Eg,

Page 2 has logo at top then some text, image and more text. The logo will no longer be at the top but lets say in the middle of page 2, the text now carrying over to page 3 with the image moving to another place or just vanishing. Which obviously throws the contents page off and also makes the document look really disorganised.

Is there no way of "locking" everything in place in word / abi / docs etc prior to Printing / Saving or converting to PDF?

Its very frustrating 

[pauld]

I use OpenOffice/LibreOffice all the time for precisely the kind of use you talk about without an issue, pixel perfect every time. Can you post an example of the original doc and the resultant PDF somewhere and PM me the location?

[jonny72]

Those kind of problems were common a few years back, can't remember the last time I saw it. Though I don't generally create PDF's on Windows, when I do it's normally with CutePDF. But if the same thing is happening with everything you try it would suggest a problem with the document itself.

I'd maybe check to ensure the margins aren't too narrow and that there is any unneeded formatting.