For quite along time, I used Adobe Acrobat Reader to open and view PDF files that I downloaded from the web or received via email. However, for the past few months I’ve been using Foxit Reader and it is awesome. It uses less memory than Adobe’s Reader and it loads up quickly and works just as well (actually better) than Acrobat Reader.
Adobe Acrobat (not Reader, just Acrobat) allows you to write almost any text or image file, webpage, or whatever file to a PDF. I find this very handy, but I never wanted to shell out $299.99+ for a copy. I’ve always used a free alternative. Years ago when I first started writing PDFs I used FreePDF which worked, but was a bit kludgey and time consuming to install. For the past year and a half or so I have been using PrimoPDF, and much like Foxit, it also rocks.
Both of these programs are completely free, are dead simple to install, and work great. If you are asking yourself “Why would I want to write PDFs?,” I can give you a couple of reasons:
- to have the benefits of a printout without wasting paper or toner/ink
- to store something that you want to print for later
- many more, that I can’t think of right now
Trust me, once you start writing PDFs, you’ll wonder what you ever did before. Download them both now!
