This post looks at Microsoft Word to PDF conversion, and how, by converting files from within Microsoft Word to PDF, you can create more intelligent PDF files faster. I won’t step you through how to create and secure your PDF files — it’s so obvious I don’t think you’ll have any trouble working that out — instead, I’ll explain the settings and options available to you, and how and when you might like to use them.
We’ll be looking at Microsoft Office 2007 but you can do pretty much everything in older versions of Office, albeit with a few extra clicks here and there — the Nitro PDF ribbon tab installed with Office 2007 is more task focused, in particular speeding up tasks involving securing PDF files.
PDF conversion settings
While the options in the Create PDF and Secure PDF groups contain the creation tasks, the Settings group is where you go to set how your PDF files should be converted. The really handy thing to keep in mind is that the settings you choose here are remembered, so if you like to perform the same conversions over and over, once you’ve chosen them here, all you’ll need do is click on one of the Create and/or Secure buttons to convert the Word file.
- Open PDF after creation. Um, this is extremely obvious. Once converted to PDF, it is opened in your default PDF viewer. (I have this on permanently as I always give my PDF files a quick check before sharing.)
- Add hyperlinks to PDF. If you have any hyperlinks in your Word file to web pages or other documents, leaving this setting on will keep them active.
- Prompt for filename. This adds an extra step to your conversion process by asking you to name the PDF file.
- Convert Headings to Bookmarks. This is one of my favorite features as it makes your PDF files much more usable and easier to navigate. Nitro Pro uses the outline or structure of your Word file to automatically create a set of navigable bookmarks in your PDF and results in a set of bookmarks appearing like this:
The feature requires you to use the paragraph styles that are available in Microsoft Word (Heading 1, Heading 2, etc.), which means no more making up formatting as you go using just the font formatting tools! (You really should stop doing that if you are.) By clicking on the More Settings button on the Nitro PDF tab, you can choose the styles and headings to become bookmarks, as well as set the level — meaning for example you can setup the structure so that Heading 2 content is always indented as a child bookmark of Heading 1 bookmarks.
- Attach source file. This allows you to attach or embed your Word file inside the PDF you create. This is useful for a few reasons: access to the source file may be useful if major editing is required, there’s less chance of either (PDF or Word) version of the file being misplaced during distribution, and (because the PDF format is good at compressing its contents) putting the Word file inside the PDF can keep the overall size down.
- Convert document summary. The option includes whatever details are listed in your document properties in Word, including document title, author, subject and keywords. (See a little more on this in my recent post.) If you’re unsure of whether you want to share this kind of information and want to maintain a little extra privacy, leave this setting off.
Document properties as they appear in the PDF
- Include document revisions (track changes). This option in More Settings includes (and makes visible) all changes that have been made to a Word file when the Track Changes feature is turned on. This not likely to be a feature most of you will need, but it can be handy for viewing and printing out all document revisions during the editing and proofing stages. It’s very important to note, that if this setting is on and you are tracking changes — even if changes are hidden from your view in Word — they will appear in the PDF you create. I recommend leaving this off unless you’re sure you need it.
- Image and font handling. These options in More Settings let you control how the images and fonts are handled when converted. These settings can affect both the size and appearance of the PDF you produce.
- Images. The basic rule of thumb for images is, the lower you downsample (and reduce the dots per inch), the smaller the file size and lower the quality of the images. When file portability outweighs image quality, you can probably get away with 96dpi; but when recipients may like to print your documents, choose either 150dpi (reasonable for most printers) or 300dpi (high quality for most office printers).
- Fonts. Embedding is the most important thing that determines how fonts will appear, how editable they may be, and how large the PDF file becomes. If you want the text in your documents to look exactly like the original Word version, then you need to use embed or subset embed. Using these ensures the text will look exactly the same as the fonts are embedded in the PDF.You might ask, why embed just a subset of a font when you could embed the whole font, or vice versa? Well, they both have their pluses and minuses. Embedding the whole font can increase the file size quite a bit, but can make editing the text in the PDF file a lot more possible; whereasembedding just a subset of a font keeps the file size smaller, but can become problematic if corrections to the PDF are required in the future and the same font is not installed on the user’s computer.Not embedding fonts at all, is something most of you won’t need. The important thing here is that you must be completely sure that all your recipients have the same fonts installed and aware that the chances are pretty high that (even if they have installed what appear to be the same fonts) the text content will look a little different to how it does on your computer. If you don’t mind that and file size is the all important issue, then not embedding at all will do the job for you.
Hopefully I’ve shed some light on your Word to PDF conversion options here. Remember Nitro Pro keeps track of your last used PDF conversion settings in Word, so it’s worth going and setting them first time so all the PDFs you create from Microsoft Word come out the way you like best — and once set, you’ll be able to create PDF files faster and more consistently.
If you want to read about full Nitro Pro creation functionality, check out the create PDF files feature overview page on the Nitro site…
6 Comments
I am running MS Office 2003 and have the latest PrimoPDF installed on my computer. How do I add hyperlinks to my PDFs using PrimoPDF? I don’t have the nifty Nitro PDF tab.
Thanks,
Brad
Brad, it’s not possible to do it using PrimoPDF at this stage.
I have HP scanner where I can copy .pdf documents with PrimoPDF. The problem is that the files become very hughe and I have difficulty even sending one page asa an attached email - it is too big. Even when I zip the .pdf file it ias difficulty going through. How do I make the files smaller throughPrimoPDF?
R.K.
R.K, Try the first tip from our recent piece on shrinking PDF files.
http://blog.nitropdf.com/index.php/2008/02/11/5-tricks-to-shrinkreduce-pdf-file-size/
Can someone please tell me what the most accepted file size is for emailing PDFs? i am being told that 1mb is too large??? is this true?
Sunshine,
It really depends on who you are sending the PDF file to. For example, Gmail accepts attachments upto 20mb in size (in total for the single e-mail). Businesses also usually impose a limit on the size of e-mails their employees can receive.
For people who use POP e-mail, large attachments can be annoying as they have to wait for a single large e-mail do download before they can read the rest of their new e-mail.
Personally I try not to e-mail anything over 10mb. When the files are larger than that, I used YouSendIt - http://www.yousendit.com