PDFCreator: Printing without the printer

Sometimes you want to print something, but you don't want to use the paper. That's why there are programs called virtual printers which allows you to print whatever you want, only saving it to a file instead of actually putting ink onto paper. PDFCreator is one such program, and (as you can tell by the name) it excels in the creation of PDFs.

If you've never heard of a program like PDFCreator before, you might find it a tad odd, but trust me, virtual printer software is DEFINITELY something you want to have on your computer. Why? Well, for starters, if you've ever wanted to save something without having to use paper (say, a receipt while online shopping), you can just print it to a PDF instead. Also, PDFCreator is great if you want to "convert" anything that can be printed into the PDF format.

When you go to print something, all you have to do is select "PDF Creator" from the list instead of your hardware printer. Then, after whatever program is printing is done, it will hand the file over to PDFCreator, and you'll be prompted for a filename. Name it, click save, and you're done. It's that easy. It also has a ton of options like the ability to integrate into the shell, or make it auto-save with the date and time as a filename.

One surprising thing about PDFCreator is that it is not limited only to PDF files. Although that is the default, it can also "print" to PNG, JPG, BMP, PSD, TIFF, and several more. Another surprising thing is that PDFCreator does not just take a "snapshot" of the thing being printed. If you use a PDF reader, you probably know that on some PDFs, you have the ability to search for text, because the text is actually in the PDF. When PDFCreator prints a file, it doesn't just "flatten" it to a picture, it includes the text. So if you print a word document, you can then search through the text in the PDF you've printed. I don't use PDFs that much, but I thought that was pretty nifty.

Virtual Printers are one type of software I can't live without. The uses are endless. You can use it for anything from just creating a PDF of a letter to your cousin to taking a section of a multipage PDF by "printing" that section with PDFCreator. The only downsides are (1) it's like installing hardware so there are drivers, (2) it's not portable, since it's like installing a real printer, and (3) it's not a lite install. PDFCreator takes at least 21mb, probably a bit more including drivers. But if you can spare the space, it's totally worth it. Plus, it's even open source.

Visit PDFCreator (pdfforge) website for download

Cool PDF Reader: It's a PDF reader. It's cool.

Cool PDF Reader is probably the smallest PDF reader in existance. Here's some of the things that make it what it is:

Uber tiny: Some might say Foxit Reader is small, but "small" is a relative term. Foxit is 6mb. Cool PDF Reader is 600kb. Wow. That's freakin tiny.

Portable: Because it's so tiny and doesn't use registry, it's easily portable.

Straightforward: I mean, it's a PDF reader. It views PDFs. You can print, zoom, rotate, jump to pages, have a slideshow, and view the properties (creation date, encryption level, etc). That's really about it.

Convert to image/Extract Text: The only thing that might not be so "standard" is the ability to save a PDF as an image (JPG, PNG, BMP, etc) and the ability to extract text and save it into a TXT file.


Obviously, because it's so small, it lacks a few things that other PDF readers might have.
Chapters list: Most readers have a chapters/page list that you can view and jump to. Cool PDF reader does not have that.
"Smooth" view: Perhaps a poor term for it, but most PDF viewers view it like a Word document: you scroll down, and the next page is right below it, and you can scroll from one page to the next. Cool PDF Reader only shows one page at a time.
Mouse/key support: Strangely enough, you can't use the mouse wheel or arrow keys to scroll around when you are zoomed in.


But really, all of those are things that are nice, but not necessary. Cool PDF Reader is definitely faster than most PDF viewers (at least of the ones I've seen); the reason why is -because Cool PDF Reader only views one page at a time, when you open a PDF with it, it only loads the first page, and then loads the rest of the pages as you change to them. That mean that although Cool PDF Reader might be faster on the start, if you're viewing a PDF with a ton of pages, it might be slower in the long run (not to mention harder to navigate, since there's no chapter list). But if you only use one-page PDFs, or rarely use PDFs at all, Cool PDF Reader may work out for you perfectly.

Visit Cool PDF Reader (Cool PDF Software) website for download

Foxit Reader: Foxy Reader!

PDF's are pretty annoying. Ok, let me rephrase that: Adobe is pretty annoying. You're browsing along on the internet, you click a link, but -uh oh, it's a PDF! Now you have to wait while Adobe takes FOREVER to start up, and eat up your system resources. OR DO YOU?!

Enter Foxit Reader. Foxit Reader does the same thing as Adobe Reader, only better. Here's a few reasons why:

-Small, in comparison: 6.52mb minus uninstaller, 6.61mb with. Not the daintiest PDF reader (if you want something smaller, try Cool PDF Reader), but compared to Adobe's 20mb, and its 10-20 second (at least) startup times, Foxit seems microscopic.

-Thumbnails for pages: To easily navigate, there's a pane with thumbnails of the pages. w00t.

-Firefox integration: Just like adobe, but with Foxit, and faster. You don't have to close Firefox to read a PDF, it opens right up in your browser.

-Portable: Yes, it's portable. Just download the zip and extract it to a folder, and you're ready to go. Great if you're going to a computer that may contain Adobe.

One tiny little thing wrong.....

-Advertisement: Yeah, there's a full version and Foxit wants you to buy it. The catch is a very tiny ad at the top. Easily ignorable, which makes Foxit still easily worth it.

To be honest, I'm not the expert on PDFs. I only use them when I have to, so Foxit meets my needs easily. If you use PDFs more often, maybe you use a different reader with more features, but for simpletons like me, Foxit is good.

Visit Foxit Reader website for download.