PDFCreator
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| PDFCreator | |
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| Developed by | pdfforge |
| Latest release | 0.9.5 / December 24, 2007 |
| Written in | Visual basic |
| OS | Microsoft Windows |
| Available in | Multilingual |
| Genre | PDF writer |
| License | GPL |
| Website | PDFCreator |
PDFCreator is an application for converting documents into Portable Document Format (PDF) format on Microsoft Windows operating systems. Once installed, it allows the user to select PDFCreator as their printer, allowing almost any application to print to PDF.[1]
It is GPL-licensed free software[1], written in Microsoft Visual Basic, and depends on a few proprietary Windows components, such as HTML Help and Windows Printer Drivers, which practically makes it only available for Microsoft Windows environments (All 32-bit MS Windows -- 95/98/NT/2000/XP and Vista). The actual PDF generation is handled by Ghostscript.
Besides being installed as a printer driver, PDFCreator can be associated with .ps files to manually convert PostScript to PDF format.
The installation package includes an optional closed source browser toolbar that serves ads and monitors usage.[2]
The OpenCD project chose PDFCreator as the best-of-breed free software package for creating PDF files in Windows.
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[edit] Document restriction
PDFCreator allows the user to disable printing, copying of text or images and modifying the original document. The user can also choose between two types of passwords, user and owner, to restrict PDF files in several ways. The former is required to open the PDF file, while the latter is necessary in order to change permissions and password. Encryption can be either 40bits, compatible with Adobe Acrobat 3.0 or 4.0, or 128 bits for Acrobat 5.0 or higher.
[edit] Impostors on the internet
PDFCreator's popularity, achieved through word of mouth advertising, has motivated other commercial software vendors to try to fool people who are looking for the free software PDFCreator to purchase their own commercial software version instead, by using a similarly spelled name to "PDFCreator".
Such attempts include Capsoft's USD$57.95 PDF Creator[3] and WCCL's USD$24.95 PDF-Creator[4].
[edit] Windows Vista support
As of version 0.9.5, there is basic Vista Support. There are some limitations though. There is a 150 USD bounty for a complete solution to the Vista issue.[5]
[edit] See also
- RedMon + Ghostscript is an alternative way of producing PS/PDF files through a virtual printer.
- CUPS — printing system for UNIX-like operating systems which includes similar functionality
- List of PDF software
[edit] References
- ^ a b PDF Forge (2006). PDFCreator. Retrieved on 2008-04-01.
- ^ PDF Forge (June 2007). PDFCreator Toolbar. Retrieved on 2008-04-01.
- ^ Capsoft, Inc (undated). PDF Creator. Retrieved on 2008-04-01.
- ^ WCCL (2008). The World's Easiest, Most Powerful PDF Creator. Retrieved on 2008-04-01.
- ^ Bug Bounty: 150 $ for solution PDFCreator on Windows Vista pdfforge.org
[edit] External links
- PDFCreator homepage
- PDFCreator SourceForge.net project page
- how-to set up pdf printer in ubuntu linux
- Step-by-step instructions for running PDFCreator in Vista
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