e-Writing
from the desk of Elsie Lee, ELIX Virtual Management
e-Writing
from the desk of Elsie Lee, ELIX Virtual Management
Handling Electronic Documents
By Elsie Lee
Friday, February 15, 2002There're cheaper solutions for converting portable documents.
What are PDF files?
PDF stands for Portable Document Format - a unique type of cross platform file format developed by Adobe. PDF files are used to represent printed material electronically. When viewed and printed, PDF files contain all the fonts, graphical information, layout and formatting of an original printed document. Creators of PDF files can prevent the copying of text, graphics, making changes, and printing a document ? taking document security to the next level.
PDF is Cross Platform, Navigational, Ultra-Printable, Ultra-Viewable, and smaller than other conventional document formats. A PDF file can be viewed and printed on any operating system including MacOS, and all Unix variants including Linux with the free Adobe Acrobat Reader. You could download it at Adobe.com
Characteristics of PDF
Cross Platform: a cross-platform file format that represents documents independent of the software, hardware, and the operating system used to create the file. In simple words, you can read a PDF document in Windows 98 that was created on a Macintosh that you downloaded from a Web site running UNIX.
Navigational: objects built into the PDF file format allow users and creators to expand the usefulness of a publication. Such items include: Internal and external links, bookmarks, thumbnails of each page, article threads, form fields, buttons for navigation, notes to annotate information, views to allow a user to magnify or reduce a page to fit within the user's computer screen.
Ultra-Printable: PDF files are based on the PostScript language imaging model. This enables sharp, color-precise printing on almost all printers.
Ultra-Viewable: On screen PDF files have a precise color match regardless of the monitor used. PDF files allow the user to magnify documents up to 800% without the loss of clarity in text or graphics.
Smaller: PDF files can be optimized to reduce their file sizes. PDF files for example can be 1/5 of the size of their HTML counterpart.
(Source of reference: pdfzone.com)
Portable Documents
As more and more businesses go online, the delivery of business documents over the Internet via email is fast overtaking snail mail and other traditional methods of delivery. The reason is simple ? it is quick and cheap.
However, problems arise when a document could not display correctly on another machine, which could be due to the incompatibility of different operating systems and document creation programs used by the creator/sender and the recipient. We will discuss the issue of resolving document format in this article.
One solution to the problem is to convert any document produced with various software programs such as MS Word, PageMaker, etc. into a Portable Document Format (PDF) file.
PDF Programs
In order to convert any document into a PDF file, one needs to have the software, which is the Adobe Acrobat Writer/Distiller developed by Adobe and priced at US$249 – quite a steep price for many small businesses and individuals to afford. I belong to this group.
But the good news is that today, many alternative solutions (third party software) are available in the market. These freeware or shareware that charges a fraction of the price of Acrobat could produce comparable results. I have spent some time evaluating some of these freeware and shareware and would like to share my experience with those who are interested. Following is my evaluation of these PDF programs, namely pdf995 (freeware by http://www.pdf995.com/), pdfFactory (shareware by http://www.fineprint.com/) and DocuCom PDF (shareware by www.zeon.com.tw).
Comparisons of results produced by pdf995, pdfFactory, DocuCom PDF with Adobe Acrobat Distiller
1. File Size
Original file size in word document: 44 kb
It's even larger for a Chinese text file converted with pdf995 (14 times compared to 3 times for pdfFactory).
2. Output Results
pdf995
Text display was distorted and jumping off the line. I tried using a different setting for the printer by changing from the recommended 'Always use built-in printer fonts instead of True Type fonts' to 'Always use True Type fonts' ? which is slower. The result was just as horrible ? letters falling off the line or shooting upwards.
pdfFactory
Text display was comparable to the result from Acrobat.
In fact, all the fonts that I used in the original file were displayed correctly with pdfFactory. Some fonts (for headings) didn't appear correctly in the Acrobat version, probably because Terence's (my Australian associate who converted the file for me) system didn't have the fonts and were substituted with the closest.
DocuCom PDF (I don’t have this program but my associate converted the file for me)
Text display was better than pdf995 but some words were distorted and letters disappeared. Do not know the actual reason, as Claudia (my other American associate) sent me one of her own files converted with the text & graphics nicely displayed.
3. Graphics
All programs (including Acrobat) produced close to similar results for graphics. Couldn't handle horizontal lines & borders properly, in particular the thickness of the lines were not uniform.
4. User experience
pdf995
I have to disable my anti-virus program when doing conversion. It's quite annoying whenever my anti-virus program alerted me that a virus like action is trying to write to my system every time I tried to save the converted file. Also, my Internet Explorer would launch automatically for the sponsor's ad (since it’s free!).
pdfFactory
This program is a shareware recommended by a ZDNet article referred by Claudia in one of her online messages. I like it for its user-friendly features. You could select whether or not to embed the fonts during conversion (result in slightly larger file size). The results produced are comparable to Acrobat and most importantly, its price - US$49.95 is quite affordable. No pop-up ads in IE and no anti-virus warning when using pdfFactory except that the trial version creates an ad message: "PDF created with FinePrint pdfFactory trial version http://www.fineprint.com/" at the bottom of each page. It is able to convert files with 2 languages (Chinese & English) nicely. I sent one such file to www.goBCL.com for a free conversion sometime back and it came back with the Chinese text appeared as ‘?’ marks.
Conclusion
pdfFactory is a close substitute to Acrobat. Its many unique features make creating and sending PDFs incredibly easy.
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