There are some PDF writers like CutePDF or PDF995 but you have to install those to use them.
Is it possible to create a portable PDF writer?
New: Kanri (Oct 9, '24), Platform 29.5.3 (Jun 27, '24)
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OpenOffice.org can convert all of it's files to PDF using the button in the toolbar.
I know that open office has a PDF writer but it can only convert documents into pdfs. I'm requesting an app that can print a page off the internet as a PDF.
Fastone ScrenCapture 5.3 http://www.portablefreeware.com/?id=775 can save as a pdf. You lose the links, but, it is an option.
Printing the page off would require a driver (which makes it non-portable)
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
called PrintPDF. It should intergrate w/ your browser, though I don't know if it is as portable as the other programs. Add-ons sometimes aren't and leave things on the host computer.
Don't be an uberPr∅. They are stinky.
hey, for web pages, if u have firefox, download the extension "PDF DOWNLOAD 2.0". it does a really good job
Agree, this is a good extension that served me well in the past (did not have a need for it more recently) and good thing that it also adds links to PDF (i.e. the ones that were in original HTML).
The only complaint I had, is that sometimes it were difficult to get PDF when you needed to, because the online service this extension relies on, was often busy serving many other users.
Here is the link to the extension:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/636
It also has trouble with some url's.
This one seems to work OK
http://www.web2pdf.co.uk/
I made this half-pony, half-monkey monster to please you.
before many times... please use the search link above this page...
If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port,
and the bus is interrupted as a very last resort,
and the address of the memory makes your floppy disk abort,
then the socket packet pocket has an error to report
EDIT: I found a much better method than what I had previously posted. Here's a free Ghostscript pdf distiller that's a bit more user-friendly than using gsview. It's freeware, but does not appear to be open source, so I'm not sure if it could be packaged as a PortableApp. Works great for me though.
FreeDist: http://home.hccnet.nl/s.vd.palen/
Well even though the thread is a year old next month.
How about PDFTK Builder ?
https://portableapps.com/apps/office/pdftk_builder_portable
Hope that does what you want.
you can only modify, merge etc pdfs with pdftkBuilder, not create them.
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
What I found while looking at Abiword is.
From this faq.
http://www.abisource.com/wiki/FaqCreatingPDFs
And the link to PDFCreator Free, is, (SourceForge)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/
Says,
How do I create a PDF document from AbiWord?
Windows
On Windows, the easiest way to create a PDF is to use a PDF printer driver. These programs create a virtual printer that can be selected while printing, allowing you to create PDFs from any program that has print functionality. Some of the more common printer drivers are:
* *PDFCreator*, a free (licensed under the GNU GPL) printer driver that allows you to create PDFs, postscript files, and images (e.g. PNG and TIFF, among others).
* *Adobe Acrobat PDF Writer* and *Adobe Acrobat Distiller*, two printer drivers that come with Adobe products and may already be installed on your computer.
How is that ?
use PDFCreator ? but it's not portable I guess ?
What is a terminal server ?
Terminal Server: PDFCreator also runs on Terminal Servers without problems.
Open Office can take text documents and export them as pdf with no problem what so ever
your friendly neighbourhood moderator Zach Thibeau
If you add control forms into the OOo Writer, and export as PDF, it creates a PDF form, with editable fields!
I made this half-pony, half-monkey monster to please you.
If he wanted to install OOo just for that.
I noticed someone said to use the search it has been
posted many times, I read everyone of them and
they all pretty much said OOo, and they are older posts.
I am interested in a writer my self,
not sure though what he meant by "print Pdf's", or what ever he said.
OOo is awesome.
Abiword Is good.
you will find, that this what most people understand as pdf writer or creater can not be made portable. This is in any case a printer (thought it prints to a file) which has to be installed on your system. Unless you can make somethink like it will install itself on demand and deinstall when closing, then the pfd creating software can not be portable.
Sure there can be a way like open something in a ceratin software and this software has build in pdf export for the files opened in it. This would be OO for example.
Otherwise one can copy - paste something into an open document in one of those software like OO and export it into pdf ...
Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland
The original poster wanted to print web pages as pdf files. As you know that would mean having a pdf print driver, which at this time can not be made portable. Even if a driver could be made portable, then all it could do is print the entire page or selection. And we all know that when we select content to print off a web page that sometimes we get unwanted content and that the page layout can not be controlled very well. If the web pages are firstly saved to disk, they can, as already pointed out, be imported into Open Office for editing and exported as a pdf. Another option to Open Office is portable Tomahawk which can be downloaded off the Softpedia web site - about 5mb installed. However it is not completely portable in that there are some registry entries made but it is much faster than Open Office, so if anyone is not too concerned about the registry entries then it could be a consideration. Perhaps someone could make a portable launcher for it. I have just made my install portable with JauntePE.
Here are the regshot results done on a clean XPproSP2 computer before I used JauntePE to portabilize my install:
Regshot 1.8.2
Comments:
Datetime:2008/11/13 22:02:56 , 2008/11/13 22:03:44
Computer:STEVE-DAAD7E0CC , STEVE-DAAD7E0CC
Username:Administrator , Administrator
----------------------------------
Keys added:7
----------------------------------
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\.tmd
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\Tomahawk
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\Tomahawk\DefaultIcon
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\Tomahawk\shell
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\Tomahawk\shell\open
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\Tomahawk\shell\open\command
HKU\S-1-5-21-1177238915-764733703-1343024091-500\Software\Microsoft\Multimedia\DrawDib
----------------------------------
Values added:6
----------------------------------
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\.tmd\: "Tomahawk"
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\Tomahawk\shell\open\command\: "F:\Downloads\Portable Tomahawk PDF+\TPdfPlus.exe "%1""
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\Tomahawk\DefaultIcon\: "F:\Downloads\Portable Tomahawk PDF+\TPdfPlus.exe,1"
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\Tomahawk\: "Tomahawk Document"
HKU\S-1-5-21-1177238915-764733703-1343024091-500\Software\Microsoft\Multimedia\DrawDib\vga.drv 1024x768x16(565 0): "31,31,31,31"
HKU\S-1-5-21-1177238915-764733703-1343024091-500\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam\MUICache\F:\Downloads\Portable Tomahawk PDF+\TPdfPlus.exe: "Tomahawk Enhanced Editor with PDF Creation"
----------------------------------
Values modified:2
----------------------------------
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Cryptography\RNG\Seed: BF AC CA 8B 41 EC 83 E4 A7 83 21 F3 0C 88 BF D5 14 DC 6D B9 53 5A 67 A8 51 61 39 72 D2 51 27 9B 87 9A D0 DB E1 3D 20 84 59 84 0B 81 65 9C 95 85 D6 B3 2A 14 77 18 EE E9 29 21 60 9F 1F A3 00 40 4C D2 28 32 96 A3 D2 94 C4 54 44 C0 D2 EF 29 ED
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Cryptography\RNG\Seed: 12 19 B0 3C EB 00 4D 6F 8C 6D 0B F3 80 E5 90 E5 E4 49 A6 76 22 BB 47 EF 16 8C 68 9C 47 56 AA D9 59 A5 56 3C 1A C9 3A AC ED 3B D2 84 04 A5 08 A5 6D 52 67 8C 51 2E 47 DA 53 7E D7 33 29 D4 8D 3B E9 D9 64 6D 1C 02 19 91 56 21 52 F8 43 C3 E4 5F
HKU\S-1-5-21-1177238915-764733703-1343024091-500\SessionInformation\ProgramCount: 0x00000002
HKU\S-1-5-21-1177238915-764733703-1343024091-500\SessionInformation\ProgramCount: 0x00000001
----------------------------------
Total changes:15
----------------------------------
You can install Puppy linux on a usb drive and get a complete OS plus programs and a PDF print driver for a total install size about half that of Open Office. To install it the easy way download "unetbootin-windows-282.exe" which is used to setup "puppy-4.1-k2.6.25.16-seamonkey.iso" onto your drive. You will need to do a Google search for the files.
Can you please link to extension download as I am having trouble finding it.
Thanks
PortableApps.com Advocate
I've tried countless options to make PDF's, and PDFCreator was only one of the PDF-printer* options. I also tried DocPrinter, PDF995, to name but a few.
My favourite (throug trial and error) is CutePDF, as it is the simplest and best in terms of quality (of the final PDF). You can of course also set the image's dpi quality in the printer's options under the Control Panel.
I would use PDFCreator if it gave me the same quality, as it is more in line with the open source movement, although CutePDF is also free. I am a graphic designer, so quality is the one final decision-making factor. And it doesn't make larger files compared to similar programs.
While most web pages are difficult to print as we would like it, CutePDF prints it as the system would print it on any other printer, so while not portable, it would in fact be what the original poster was looking for, if also considering that none of the above answers points to true portable apps.
It seems there is still no real option for this so far, is there?
is a an addon to firefox and it works on my side. It will grab the firefox page and convert it to pdf.
search in mozilla.com addons for pdfit
Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland
It's still one of the few programs that I have to install (PDFCreator), I don't think a portable solution is possible if you need a PDF Printer.
the pdfit does work well portable. OK, it does not anything else, but it prints websides from firefox portable without problems. It will however not print anything else, this would need the printer driver function.
It simply captures the content of a website, few options are given, and it can convert it to pdf or image. So for that purpose it might be useful. For the rest, well OO will be the thing to be used.
Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland
I prefer the convenience of having a PDF printer. I print some things to PDFs that are not from my browser. Mac OSX has a PDF printer by default and I think most Linux distributions do as well. Microsoft should really get with the times and include one with Windows.
A printer driver can't be portable. End of story. It requires admin rights... in which case you can just install it anyway.
So, we're looking at other options for specific things.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
I appreciate that, which is why I'm resigned to the fact of having to install at least one program on every PC I use at home/work (permissions withstanding). It's just my personal preference, I like having a PDF printer.
Obviously if I'm on a "foreign" PC then I have to get a little more creative, but I can't say that it's ever been an issue.
Given the number of programs that I have to install now versus say 5 years ago, I'm not complaining. I think I'm down to about 3 or 4 now, and of those, you can't practically speaking NOT have a resident anti-virus solution, so one of those (just like the PDF printer) is a given (for me).
EDIT: I just found this post I made a while back about Which "installed" apps you still use. I mention PDFCreator.
Most people don't need one. About 95% of what people need PDF creation for is for Word or other office docs, which OpenOffice.org does nicely. A few more people need it for Firefox, which there are some solutions available. So we're working it from that angle.
Personally, I never use a PDF printer anymore. I used to way back in the day when I used MS Office. But now that I use OpenOffice.org, I never need it. I never save web pages to PDFs (HTML is just fine).
So let's drop the talk of PDF printers and focus on portable stuff... k?
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Alright, you're the boss.
Does anyone have a portable space heater.. I'm freezing!
:lol: :lol: :lol:
I was disappointed with it. Text cannot be extracted from its PDF
I selected a topic in a technical forum and used PDF It! "Print to PDF".
It created a PDF extension file, but it was only an image in a PDF "envelope".
My PDF Readers could show me exactly what the website forum looked like,
but the only had access to an image, and were not able to extract portions of text.
Alan
Use an OCR program to extract the text from the picture.
Adapt and overcome!
Top OCR: https://portableapps.com/node/21986
Backup ideas: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-5-free-ocr-software-tools-to-convert-yo...
Cancer Survivors -- Remember the fight, celebrate the victory!
Help control the rugrat population -- have yourself spayed or neutered!
TopOCR works, I can vouch for that! Amazing program considering it's free. The only other OCR program I've used came with my scanner (the name escapes me) but TopOCR does as almost an equally good job in my opinion. You might have to fiddle with the settings a little bit though to make sure you get the most accurate conversion but it's a painless process.
Works pretty well. The freeware one is not portable at all, but they have a shareware one that is portable. After a month, you gotta buy it for $14.20.
There's also an online converter.
http://www.7-pdf.de/
I made this half-pony, half-monkey monster to please you.
FWIW, there is a shareware version of Tomahawk Gold that saves as PDF. Much smaller than OpenOffice, but has "Demo" (I think) stamped on out put. Still, for occasional use..
http://www.nativewindsofmontana.com/software/tomahawk.html#Downloads
I am not my signature.
Now I'm confused. It says here that print to pdf programs install a printer driver that just prints to a pdf file - and 'all' printer drivers need admin rights - hence cannot be portable in the sense of working from a flash drive without admin rights on the host machine. OK - I heard that.
But then, how can OpenOffice Portable print its own files to pdf without having admin rights? And how come 7-pdf (shareware version)- claims (in German) that it is portable. Heck it's not so expensive, I'd be happy to take the risk and try it - except I have had a bad experience with German-language spam (real spam, not post purchase nagging) as a result of downloading a (paid-for) German program, so I won't risk it from a German company I've never heard of)...
Does the assurance that you *must* have admin rights mean that 7-pdf won't really work fully portably? That it must be a scam? Or have they found a way round the problem? In any case, how does OpenOffice get away with it?
Please put me out of my misery and explain?
David
David
I tried 7-PDF but was not overly impressed with it.
It appears to be open office stripped down & repackaged to look like a new program.
A PDF add-on program, that allows all programs (like MS Office) to be able to create PDFs directly is actually done as a virtual printer. It installs a virtual printer at the OS level and then every app that can print can create a PDF instead of a printout. This is the way most PDF apps work. The disadvantage is, since it is a driver, it requires admin rights. The advantage is, it works with every app with every file format.
OpenOffice.org includes the ability to *directly* create a PDF from anything within OpenOffice.org including documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Since it's a part of the app itself and requires no driver, it'll work everywhere. The disadvantage is, it only works with files you can open in OpenOffice.org. Luckily, this fulfills probably 90% or more of all user's PDF needs.
7-PDF is a third type of app. A standalone app that can directly read in a file and create a PDF from it. The advantage is that it isn't a driver, so it'll work everywhere. The disadvantage is that it has to be able to read and interpret every kind of file itself... so it's only as good as its file format interpreters.
I haven't used 7-PDF itself, but my experience with other products of this nature has shown that, generally, they only work for simple stuff and complex stuff winds up with formatting issues. That said, I'd be curious about experiences with 7-PDF as I haven't looked at apps of that type in quite some time.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
It says it:
* Supports over 80 formats
* isnt a printer
* Konvertermodule based on Openoffice.org
* supports Hyperlinks and Tagged PDF (indicesin PDFs)
* supoprts 128-Bit Password-Encryption
* Command Line Version
* Sumatra PDF Viewer as an integrated pdf viewer
* english and german lang support
* Freeware
I had a quick glance at it and haven't found any formats which 7-PDF opens that OpenOffice doesn't open too so I dont know how valuable it would be to have it here.
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
has the ability to open ~400 different kinds of files, and save or export them to many types.
Including PDF.
https://portableapps.com/apps/graphics_pictures/xnview_portable
With OOo and XnView you should be able to convert any file to PDF - and then use PDFTK Builder to combine and rearrange the pages.
I made this half-pony, half-monkey monster to please you.
Does XnView require GhostScript to be installed though? I'm pretty sure it can't open some proprietary postscript formats with Ghostscript.
If it can save to a PDF as is, then that's pretty cool, that might just convince me to replace IrfanView with it.
is one of the official freeware apps on this site, so it is self-contained; so like all of the official apps here, it doesn't require anything to be installed other than itself.
I made this half-pony, half-monkey monster to please you.
Hi,
I have read the whole thread and I see there are
-some apps that can convert particular formats to PDF and can be portable (OpenOffice, XnView, various FF plugins...)
-there are virtual printers that print to PDF - they can convert anything, but are not portable (except the whole portable OS solution with a Linux distro).
There is another possibility - not perfect, because it's not working on any Windows computer, but close to the virtual PDF printer solution. Computer with Office installed should have the Misrosoft Office Document Image Writer (MSODIW), which is virtual printer able to print to multipage TIF files. The TIF can be converted to PDF by XnView.
Advantage: This way you can convert any file that can be printed, just like with a virtual PDF printer.
Disadvantages:
-No colors, MSODIW can produce only BW output.
-Poor quality of graphics - max 300 dpi BW, dithering of grey levels.
-Not really available on any computer, depends on MS Office.
So with the shortcomings in mind, it is possible to use this method if you have installed portable XnView, and I'm sure it could be possible to automate the process somehow with a script.
the main disadvantage of this solution is:
it is just a bitmap
text is no more text
vectors are no more vectors
that is not the real sense of pdf
They need to start using layered PNG's instead of bitmap.
Someone could also take a screen shot, save it as a jpeg or something, open it using openoffice.org and export to a pdf. The problem here is text isn't selectable, etc. since the pdf is made from an image.
OCR can be done to an image but it requires propriatary non free software.
Or not... TopOCRPortable
i have used that at home and it doesnt work very well.
look for 7 pdf maker portable:
http://www.downloadplex.com/Windows/Business/Office-Suites-Tools/7-pdf-m...
it´s shareware
a bit late i know, but maybe someone is still searching for a portable pdf maker...
http://pdfprinter.com/download/
This is not portable but what it does do well is:
That All links Work!!!!!! (its free)
and it also integrates into MS word (as a tab/menu ETC)
down side is you need to install ghost script and when you print it mucks you around a bit with too much pop-up boxes and options...then takes a while....
But for the links that work 100% of the time i have to use it.
So i think it would be cool if a portable pdf creator of some description...
(even if it is not practically possible to have it function as a windows printer)
could none the less integrate automatically into the most common programs (top 10 or what ever) this would be almost as good and would serve the majority.
(also another idea would be for the portable app to register a printer when you start it up then remove it when you close down the application.. this way the app could be portable as im sure people dont move their "portable apps" while they are using them LOL)
On my Mac, I can print ANYTHING to a PDF.
***please feel free to ignore my selfish comment***
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
My use of Google indicates that I am insane.
***please feel free to be offended my selfish comment***
ok
very nice .... thanks alot
ok everyone who is using the "can't" word ... erm, why?
I knows there's lots of different types of drivers, but I don't get all the nuances and repercussions. All I know is that MS & Apple are a PITA!
I'm win7 AT LEAST until I have native touchy-stroky-hardware. I adore native virtualisation, and am experimenting with registry and software magic using differencing disks instead of the poxy (typo?) sysRestore... anyway, drivers, for devices.
I use a portable, virtual cd drive. Check out cdemu, it's beautiful, and I don't understand why apple & co can't do something similar, ie why all apps can't be portable...
for trendy devwhizzkids have a peek @ https://github.com/sysprogs/WinCDEmu ... I'm not a genius or a dev, so all I can do is fiddle, and imagine...
Is there a diff between (v)cd-drives, and their drivers, and (v.pdf)printer devices, and their drivers?!
Anything is possible.
to install a real driver under windows, you need admin rights thats abt all
Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland
A driver means it requires admin rights. On Windows, to install a driver, you need admin rights. While it makes sense in the context of certain system utilities in a portable fashion, it doesn't really make sense just to print to a PDF when the main things you'd want to PDF you can already "print" to a PDF (aka export) just using LibreOffice. Spreadsheets, documents, presentations, all can be saved as a PDF right from LibreOffice. No drivers or admin rights required. The only real reason for the hacky print to PDF drivers was really Microsoft Office. And if you're using Microsoft Office on your PC and have the admin rights required to run a PDF print driver... just install it.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!