MakePDF for Microsoft Word

http://www.docauto.com/

(Reviewed October 2002 by Fred Sabin, President, NJCC)

“MakePDF for Microsoft Word” is an add-in utility that can save any document in Microsoft Word directly to a PDF (Adobe’s Portable Document Format) document. It does not have many of the features of “Adobe Acrobat”, but it also is much less expensive. It is really easy to install and use, and is ideal for those who want a simple and inexpensive way to create PDF documents.

The “MakePDF for Microsoft Word” software is a 2 MB downloadable file that installs a “MakePDF.dot” template into your Word Startup directory, with a “MakePDF” toolbar menu button in MS Word that allows selection of conversion options. This program only creates PDF files from within MS Word (that can be read with the free Adobe Acrobat Reader), but it can not import or read from PDF files. It supports encryption, font embedding, graphics compression, hyperlink conversion, web optimization, security protection, and many other features.

Unfortunately, there is no “Help” menu (and only a two page limited “PDF Documentation” available from “Start” > “Programs”), but the program is not hard to learn. Saving a file using the “default” settings is great for simple text documents (as I have done with this one), but some trial and error will be required to master the differences between compression options when saving documents with graphics and images. For example, this review required 27 KB as a MS Word document, and 11 KB as a PDF document of equal quality. However, when I prepared a document that contained a 454 KB (1536x1024 true color 24 bit) digital photo and a 40 KB (432x309) JPEG image (from a scanner input), the MS Word document was only 720 KB, but the PDF conversion was a whopping 6,126 KB at no compression and 3,671 KB at the default (24 bit) compression. The “grey scale” option further reduced the default PDF file size to 1,218 KB (for B&W printing); and a 256 color compression resulted in an acceptable 1,051 KB PDF document; but a further reduction to a 64 KB PDF document using JPEG compression was unacceptable for this application. Thus, there is a learning curve required to make the best use of this program’s options.

“MakePDF for Microsoft Word” works with Microsoft Word 97, 2000, and XP/2002 (using Windows 95 or later). It does not work with other word processing programs.

The list price for “MakePDF for Microsoft Word” is $30. A special User Group pricing of $24 is available for NJCC members by specifying discount code "NJCC Discount" in the comments section of the order form at http://www.docauto.com (this code is also valid for a 20% discount on any DAD products … in any quantity).

I feel that this is an excellent product for the majority of our NJCC members who have limited PDF requirements, and I will do demos of this software so you can see how it works and compare compression options and other product features at future NJCC meetings.

Document Automation Developers, LLC, is located in Norcross, Georgia, with a website at http://www.docauto.com; email at info@docauto.com; or toll free telephone at 888-432-3552.