Print to PDF file using a virtual printer

PDF files are quite common and convenient. You've probably read PDFs, e-books and technical guides in PDF. But how do you create a file in this format yourself?

Among the many solutions offered, the most simple and cheap (and even completely free) is printing to PDF using a virtual printer. It looks like this: you create a file in any application that supports printing documents, and "print" the document in a new format.

Printing to a PDF file on a virtual printer is no different from printing on a real printer, unless you get the document on paper. This - if we talk about quality, modified software products (we'll look at some of them below). On the virtual printer, you can set the print settings: display pages on the desired scale, fields, print settings for images.

The most popular printing in PDF file documents from Word. As you know, in Portable Document Format text can be displayed as an image (then copying is impossible) and how, actually, the text. In some cases, you can set a prohibition on copying text from a file to protect information.

If you choose to print to PDF with saving the text format, the appropriate printer fonts must be configured in the printer program. So, not all foreign printers support Cyrillic, and if you used to write any special fonts, they can not be installed in all virtual PDF-printers. The last feature of programs of this type, however, does not really interfere with the work, since special types of fonts are used very rarely and in the main only make it difficult to read the text.

So, the top 5 virtual printers to save files to PDF:

1. DoPDF - The most popular utility in our country and abroad. Free, requires a minimum of resources. The program implements all the basic functions of a virtual printer, so if you only need to print a PDF file from time to time, there is no point in purchasing other paid products.

2. PDF-XChange - Comes as an addition to ABBYY PDF Transformer. Transformer is a full-fledged application for creating documents of the specified format, which can also "print out" files by embedding in the context menu of the explorer. Due to text recognition, Transformer can convert PDF files back to text format documents.
   

3. PdfFactory Pro - The most expensive program from the list, but also the most multifunctional. In Factory, you can specify from which page and in what scale the document will be opened. Thanks to the creation of bookmarks in PDF viewers, you can use the navigation bar. In the program you can customize the styles of fonts and borders on the page, a preview of the document is available.

4. PDF Creator - The program is free and differs in that it can send files to print in PDF in batch mode. And the queue is also used in the standby mode, accumulating documents for some time before printing. The printer supports saving files not only in PDF, but also in several other graphic formats.

5. ReaSoft PDF Printer - Another good program. Provides ample opportunities for the removal of watermarks. You can specify their shape, position and even color. You can also add headers and footers to the document.