Hi,

Can someone recommend a free application that can convert a Word 2000
document to PDF format, preserving all hyperlinks and not inserting
any watermarks?

Thanks

In article <5a373b1d.0410270036.5eb88583@posting.google.com>, 
yashgt@yahoo.com says...
> Hi,
> 
> Can someone recommend a free application that can convert a Word 2000
> document to PDF format, preserving all hyperlinks and not inserting
> any watermarks?
> 
> Thanks
> 


You might take a look at ghostword (uses ghostscript). I think it will
handle hyperlinks ; I don;t know about watermarks.  But you will need to 
check for yourself.

 
-- 
Philip A. Viton
Ohio State University

yashgt@yahoo.com (Yash) wrote in message news:<5a373b1d.0410270036.5eb88583@posting.google.com>...
> Hi,
> 
> Can someone recommend a free application that can convert a Word 2000
> document to PDF format, preserving all hyperlinks and not inserting
> any watermarks?
> 
> Thanks

Sure. We use PDF Creator. I don't know about the hyperlinks, though.
The program allows for a decent amount of options. The resulting files
are 99 per cent as good as if they were made with Adobe Acrobat.

Cheers,
Ralf

Yash schrieb:
> Can someone recommend a free application that can convert a Word 2000
> document to PDF format, preserving all hyperlinks and not inserting
> any watermarks?

Hello Yash,

a very convenient way is the combination of both:

1) a virtual PDF printer driver AND

2) a macro package for Word that automatically inserts special code into 
the Postscript output to mark "web features" (called pdfmark's). A 
PS-to-PDF-converter (the virtual PDF printer driver in your case, or 
more exactly Ghostscript) will later recognize the pdfmarks and create 
hyperlinks, a table of contents and such features.

Your choices for a free virtual PDF printer driver:
====================================================

I listed several of them on 
https://rnvs.informatik.tu-chemnitz.de/twiki/bin/view/Main/FreePdfUtilitiesAndLibraries
in the section " Free PDF printers  / based on Ghostscript".

  * FreePDF and FreePDF XP - http://freepdfxp.de/
  * PDFCreator - https://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/
  * CutePDF Writer - http://www.cutepdf.com/Products/CutePDF/writer.asp
  * PrimoPDF - http://www.primopdf.com/

None of these programs inludes an "ad line" in the PDF nor some annoying 
advertisement popup. I regularly use FreePDF, but decide yourself, which 
way to go.

Some of them include Ghostscript in the distributed exe file (total size 
is around 8-10 MB), some of them don't (around 1-2 MB) so that you have 
to install Ghostscript, too.

http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/doc/AFPL/get814.htm

Hint 1: You do not necessarily need GSview (a Postscript viewer), but 
its a wise decision to install it, as well.

Hint 2: Make sure, you have a recent version of Ghostscript, e.g. 8.14.

Your choices for a free Word macro library to insert pdfmarks
==============================================================

GhostWord is pretty much the only option here. The distribution of 
Ghostword does not include Ghostscript.

http://www.et.dtu.dk/Software/GhostWord/Index.html

Hope, this helps,
Ralf

BTW. Once you installed the vistual PDF printer software (and 
Ghostscript, if necessary) you can "print" to PDF files from all your 
applications.

Procedure: To make a PDF file from a Word file: Open word file in Word, 
File|Print, select newly created PDF printer, OK. Usually, now the Adobe 
Reader will pop up with your newly created PDF file.

Please check the settings in the PDF printer software (there is a 
configuration dialog there) and read the manual on the settings. They 
have *big* influence on the resulting compromise between document 
quality (foremost picture quality) and file size.


-- 
Ralf Koenig
Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter an der
Professur Rechnernetze und verteilte Systeme
TU Chemnitz, Zi. 1/B320, Tel. 0371-531-1532

Ralf Koenig <ralf.koenig@informatik.tu-chemnitz.de> writes:

> GhostWord is pretty much the only option here. The distribution of
> Ghostword does not include Ghostscript.

> Procedure: To make a PDF file from a Word file: Open word file in
> Word, File|Print, select newly created PDF printer, OK. Usually, now
> the Adobe Reader will pop up with your newly created PDF file.

Thanks; that was a great tip about a tool I didn't know.

I installed it on my WXP Pro machine with Office 2000 and the Adobe
Generic Printer Driver, and it's not quite working:

  Word:

    The configuration all looks okay.

    When I print, there's a small, pop-up window that (I think) says
    it's printing.

    The GhostWord dialog box closes, and Word minimizes.

    There's no PDF or PS output (I even tried searching for any *.pdf
    created today anywhere).

    I also tried it from the command line, thinking it might report an
    error, but the same thing happened, and there was no error or
    logfile that I could find.

  Excel:

    When I open it, it complains that there are the wrong number of
    parameters.  If I click Okay, it opens the GhostWord dialog box (the
    title bar says "Word to PDF").  

    I can print a file, and it opens it in Adobe Reader (6.0.2).  

    The GhostWord dialog box stays open after it prints.

    Even though the file has color (cell background colors) and I
    checked to make sure all the settings kept color on (or so it
    seemed), the image is in B+W.

  PowerPoint:

    I had to add the add-in manually, according to the instructions.  

    When I click on the GhostWord icon, nothing visible happens.

I really like the promise of being able to use this with Word to create
active links.  This all works fine for me when I print to PS and then
use gsview/ghostscript (8.14) to create color PDFs, but that process
obviously doesn't get links, and it's a bit slower to do.

I searched on Google but didn't find anything promising; thoughts?

Thanks,

Bill
-- 
Bill Harris
Facilitated Systems
http://facilitatedsystems.com/               

Bill Harris <bill_harris@facilitatedsystems.com> writes:

> I installed it on my WXP Pro machine with Office 2000 and the Adobe
> Generic Printer Driver, and it's not quite working:

More data:  I uninstalled it and tried version 2.00, but that was no
better.  

I uninstalled 2.00 and reinstalled 2.10.  This time I saw that I had to
run the program when it asks at the end of the installation; I may not
have done that last time.

When I ran the program, it complained (pop-up window) that it could not
copy Ghostword.dot and asked me to do it manually.  When I checked, I
found it already present in c:/Documents and Settings/.../Application
Data/Microsoft/STARTUP.  Is that not correct?

Then it complained ('nother pop-up) that "The RPC Server is unavailable"
and displayed the GhostWord GUI.  If I clicked on the Word icon, it
would remind me about the RPC server; clicking on the other icons (Excel
or PowerPoint) didn't elicit such a message.

When I open Word, I see 2 GW icons, not one.  Clicking on either seems
to work -- I can select a location for the PDF file, I can click
convert, it pops up a "printing" window, and then it goes through the
conversion process -- but there's no PDF or PS file anywhere I can see.

When I open Excel, I get one GW icon.  Clicking it gives me a warning
"Invalid number of parameters"; clicking OK gives me the GUI.  If I ask
it to print the active sheet, it prints the _first_ sheet instead.  If I
ask for all sheets, it does that in B+W, even though I've asked for
color, and it's claims to be using the same PS driver I routinely use
for color PDFs when I use gsview/ghostscript manually.

Does that provide more clues?

Thanks,

Bill
-- 
Bill Harris
Facilitated Systems
http://facilitatedsystems.com/               

Still more data on my challenges in getting GhostWord to work on my WXP
Pro/Office 2000 system:

I ran GhostWord 2.10 on a 39 page file, and that slowed the PS printing
long enough for me to find the file location: c:/Documents and
Settings/myloginname/Local Settings/Temp/ps104F.tmp.  I renamed that to
ps104F.ps and opened it successfully with GSview.  I converted ps104F.ps
to PDF with GSview/Ghostscript, and the resulting file had links that
worked!  

So the problem seemed to be that GhostWord didn't follow through after
creating the PS file, nor did it delete the PS file at the end.  If I
can figure out (perhaps with a bit of help) how to make that work, I'll
test to see if the other GhostWord options work.

Thanks,

Bill

PS: FWIW, I'm running GSview 4.6 and ghostscript 8.14.
-- 
Bill Harris                          
Facilitated Systems                  
http://facilitatedsystems.com/       

In article <umzxrnds9.fsf@villingen.facilitatedsystems.com>, 
bill_harris@facilitatedsystems.com says...
> Still more data on my challenges in getting GhostWord to work on my WXP
> Pro/Office 2000 system:
> 
> I ran GhostWord 2.10 on a 39 page file, and that slowed the PS printing
> long enough for me to find the file location: c:/Documents and
> Settings/myloginname/Local Settings/Temp/ps104F.tmp.  I renamed that to
> ps104F.ps and opened it successfully with GSview.  I converted ps104F.ps
> to PDF with GSview/Ghostscript, and the resulting file had links that
> worked!  
> 
> So the problem seemed to be that GhostWord didn't follow through after
> creating the PS file, nor did it delete the PS file at the end.  If I
> can figure out (perhaps with a bit of help) how to make that work, I'll
> test to see if the other GhostWord options work.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Bill
> 
> PS: FWIW, I'm running GSview 4.6 and ghostscript 8.14.
> 


I wonder if the problem might have been that ghostscript had trouble 
with the file name with a space in it? I've always been careful to save
docs that needed GS processing in folders whose name was space-less; but 
on the other hand I've not used ghostword in a while, and maybe it 
compensates?


-- 


Phil Viton
Ohio State University

Philip A. Viton <viton.1@osu.edu> writes:

> I wonder if the problem might have been that ghostscript had trouble 
> with the file name with a space in it? I've always been careful to save
> docs that needed GS processing in folders whose name was space-less; but 
> on the other hand I've not used ghostword in a while, and maybe it 
> compensates?

Space-less folder names are scarce in Windows, unfortunately, but I
tried it with a document called c:\TestDocument.doc, and it still
failed.  

Of course, it still saved the Postscript .tmp file in c:\Documents and
Settings\myloginname\Local Settings\Temp, so maybe _either_ the fact the
temp directory path has spaces _or_ the fact it has a .tmp instead of a
..ps filename extension is a problem.  I don't see how to change either
of those, except for changing all the names of the directories in the
path to that Temp directory, and I'm afraid of other dependencies.

Thanks, Phil, for your quick suggestion.  It seemed reasonable; I wish
it had worked.

Bill
-- 
Bill Harris
Facilitated Systems
http://facilitatedsystems.com/               

Bill Harris <bill_harris@facilitatedsystems.com> writes:

>     The GhostWord dialog box closes, and Word minimizes.
> 
>     There's no PDF or PS output (I even tried searching for any *.pdf
>     created today anywhere).

You need to use a printer driver that 'does the work correctly'. How
this is determined has for me been by trial and error. I tried the
Adobe driver with no luck (as always) and afair the same problems as
you. I now again switched to one of the HP drivers (8500PS) and it
runs, only strange thing is that is makes a popup asking me to save
the ps-file. This is a rather new "feature".

> 
>   Excel:
> 
>     When I open it, it complains that there are the wrong number of
>     parameters.  

This is a new bug in winxp

>     checked to make sure all the settings kept color on (or so it
>     seemed), the image is in B+W.

>   PowerPoint:
> 
>     I had to add the add-in manually, according to the instructions.  
> 
>     When I click on the GhostWord icon, nothing visible happens.

Try to open ghostword form the start menu and select powerpoint.

> I searched on Google but didn't find anything promising; thoughts?
> 
Send Morten (ms at et.dtu.dk) a mail. He will probably respond if
enough people send their support and requests. 

Delphi is his native language in fact.

-- 
Brian (remove the sport for mail)
http://www.et.dtu.dk/staff/be/be.html

Brian Elmegaard <brian@rk-speed-rugby.dk> writes:

> you. I now again switched to one of the HP drivers (8500PS) and it
In fact it is 4600PS

-- 
Brian (remove the sport for mail)
http://www.et.dtu.dk/staff/be/be.html

Brian Elmegaard <brian@rk-speed-rugby.dk> writes:

> You need to use a printer driver that 'does the work correctly'. How
> this is determined has for me been by trial and error. I tried the
> Adobe driver with no luck (as always) and afair the same problems as
> you. I now again switched to one of the HP drivers (8500PS) and it
> runs, only strange thing is that is makes a popup asking me to save
> the ps-file. This is a rather new "feature".

Argh.  I thought the Adobe driver would be a decent choice; I regularly
use it to produce Postscript that I then convert to PDF with
Ghostscript/GSview.  

I tried it with my HP LJ1300 Postscript driver, but I got the same
result.  I hadn't been using that for this purpose because it doesn't do
color (it doesn't need to, and it does B+W when I use it to create PS
files).  Maybe I'll have to see if I can find another Postscript driver
somewhere.

>>   Excel:
>> 
>>     When I open it, it complains that there are the wrong number of
>>     parameters.  
>
> This is a new bug in winxp

Ah.  I like new features C-h C-h C-h ... C-h bugs. :-)

>>     checked to make sure all the settings kept color on (or so it
>>     seemed), the image is in B+W.
>
>>   PowerPoint:
>> 
>>     I had to add the add-in manually, according to the instructions.  
>> 
>>     When I click on the GhostWord icon, nothing visible happens.
>
> Try to open ghostword form the start menu and select powerpoint.

I tried opening a PPT file a colleague sent me using that approach and
my lj1300 driver, and it popped up a window that said, "Could not
convert variant of type(Error) into type(Integer)".  Hmm.

I then tried converting the same file using the Adobe driver, and it
said, "Could not get in touch with PowerPoint...If you have PowerPoint
installed then try to: 1) Restart your computer or 2) Update GhostWord
from www.et.dtu.dk/Software/GhostWord or 3) Reinstall PowerPoint".  When
it put up that pop-up, it also changed the label for the second text
entry box from "PowerPoint file to convert:" to "PostScript file to
convert:". 

More hmm.

I decided to see if it would convert a PostScript file, so I browsed to
one, converted it using the lj1300 driver, and, indeed, that worked!  It
did color (!), and it even deleted the PostScript file, as promised :-(
(I wanted that file!).  

So I guess I can make the 2 steps (.doc -> .ps, .ps -> .pdf) work
independently, but I can't yet link them, and I don't know how to have
it ask to convert a PostScript file without making it error out on a
PowerPoint file first.  (Oh, I see: that's the default on opening
GhostWord, but you can't set it back to PostScript after successfully
selecting another file type.)

Still more hmm.  Hmm.

> Send Morten (ms at et.dtu.dk) a mail. He will probably respond if
> enough people send their support and requests. 

Thanks for your ideas.  I have, as a matter of fact, sent him a couple;
I suspect he's just busy, or I haven't written something that gives him
any ideas to proceed.  I'll cc: him on this, just in case.  

It's a bit baffling; others seem to make GhostWord work without much
effort, so I'm not sure why my case should be different.

Thanks,

Bill
-- 
Bill Harris
Facilitated Systems
http://facilitatedsystems.com/               

Bill Harris <bill_harris@facilitatedsystems.com> wrote:

>Brian Elmegaard <brian@rk-speed-rugby.dk> writes:
>
>> You need to use a printer driver that 'does the work correctly'. How
>> this is determined has for me been by trial and error. I tried the
>> Adobe driver with no luck (as always) and afair the same problems as
>> you. I now again switched to one of the HP drivers (8500PS) and it
>> runs, only strange thing is that is makes a popup asking me to save
>> the ps-file. This is a rather new "feature".
>
>Argh.  I thought the Adobe driver would be a decent choice; I regularly
>use it to produce Postscript that I then convert to PDF with
>Ghostscript/GSview.  

On Windows XP there is no "Adobe driver" any more, only the Microsoft
driver. Drivers differ only in the PPD that you select when installing
them (or which is automatically used with a printer installer or INF
file).

Adobe's PS printer download, in Windows XP, just installs the same
Microsoft driver you'd get anyway.

(In Windows 9x the Adobe driver is indeed better, but those who read
license agreements will realise it is not licensed for use with
GhostScript).

The choice of PPD is crucial; I've long been puzzled why there doesn't
seem to be a GhostScript PPD. (Maybe there is and it just isn't well
known).
----------------------------------------
Aandi Inston  quite@dial.pipex.com http://www.quite.com
Please support usenet! Post replies and follow-ups, don't e-mail them.

Bill Harris <bill_harris@facilitatedsystems.com> writes:

> I tried it with my HP LJ1300 Postscript driver, but I got the same
> result.  

ave you set it to portable postscript?

-- 
Brian (remove the sport for mail)
http://www.et.dtu.dk/staff/be/be.html

quite@dial.pipex.con (Aandi Inston) writes:

> On Windows XP there is no "Adobe driver" any more, only the Microsoft
> driver. Drivers differ only in the PPD that you select when installing
> them (or which is automatically used with a printer installer or INF
> file).

So that means I might as well use my LJ1300 driver, 'cause it's the same
one, anyway?

> Adobe's PS printer download, in Windows XP, just installs the same
> Microsoft driver you'd get anyway.
>
> (In Windows 9x the Adobe driver is indeed better, but those who read
> license agreements will realise it is not licensed for use with
> GhostScript).

Hmm.  I'll have to read it again.  I thought I had checked and not found
a problem.

Bill
-- 
Bill Harris
Facilitated Systems
http://facilitatedsystems.com/

Bill Harris <bill_harris@facilitatedsystems.com> wrote:

>quite@dial.pipex.con (Aandi Inston) writes:
>
>> On Windows XP there is no "Adobe driver" any more, only the Microsoft
>> driver. Drivers differ only in the PPD that you select when installing
>> them (or which is automatically used with a printer installer or INF
>> file).
>
>So that means I might as well use my LJ1300 driver, 'cause it's the same
>one, anyway?

Yes, if you're going to print to an LJ1300 with the PostScript file.

Otherwise, something based on a suitable PPD...
----------------------------------------
Aandi Inston  quite@dial.pipex.com http://www.quite.com
Please support usenet! Post replies and follow-ups, don't e-mail them.

"Bill Harris" <bill_harris@facilitatedsystems.com> wrote:

> Of course, it still saved the Postscript .tmp file in c:\Documents and
> Settings\myloginname\Local Settings\Temp, so maybe _either_ the fact the
> temp directory path has spaces _or_ the fact it has a .tmp instead of a
> .ps filename extension is a problem.  I don't see how to change either
> of those, except for changing all the names of the directories in the
> path to that Temp directory, and I'm afraid of other dependencies.

Well, to use a different folder for temporary files, you could of
course e.g. create a folder C:\Temp and specify that in the
environment variables TMP and TEMP. On an NT-based system
(Windows 2000/XP), you'll find them in Control Panel > System >
Extended > Environment variables (names translated from German), in
the upper half of the dialog for the user variables.

You'll have to close and re-open Word (or whatever program calls
GhostWord) so that the changed variables are in effect.

Horst 

"Aandi Inston" <quite@dial.pipex.con> wrote:

> I've long been puzzled why there doesn't
> seem to be a GhostScript PPD. (Maybe there is and it just isn't well
> known).

There is a third-party Ghostscript PPD available in:

http://www.rumborak.de/produktives/download/Rumborak%20Treiber-Archiv.zip

(That link gets redirected to a file named
"Rumborak Treiber-Archiv 1.0RC8.zip" currently.) In that Zip file it
is: Rumborak/Treiber/GS815.ppd

Unfortunately the Rumborak.de site seems to be in German only.

Horst 

"Horst Kiehl" <h.p.kiehl@fz-juelich.de> writes:

> Unfortunately the Rumborak.de site seems to be in German only.

Vielen Dank!  Ich habe Rumborak.de schon mal gefunden aber den .ppd noch
nicht gesehen.  Heute habe ich es downloaded, dank Ihre Empfehlung.  Ich
lese den "Bitte Lesen.html" sp�ter.

Nochmals vielen Dank.

Bill
-- 
Bill Harris   
Facilitated Systems
http://facilitatedsystems.com/

"Horst Kiehl" <h.p.kiehl@fz-juelich.de> writes:

> "Bill Harris" <bill_harris@facilitatedsystems.com> wrote:
>
>> Of course, it still saved the Postscript .tmp file in c:\Documents and
>> Settings\myloginname\Local Settings\Temp, so maybe _either_ the fact the
>> temp directory path has spaces _or_ the fact it has a .tmp instead of a
>> .ps filename extension is a problem.  I don't see how to change either
>> of those, except for changing all the names of the directories in the
>> path to that Temp directory, and I'm afraid of other dependencies.
>
> Well, to use a different folder for temporary files, you could of
> course e.g. create a folder C:\Temp and specify that in the
> environment variables TMP and TEMP. On an NT-based system
> (Windows 2000/XP), you'll find them in Control Panel > System >
> Extended > Environment variables (names translated from German), in
> the upper half of the dialog for the user variables.

FWIW, I happened to discover it works with Excel just fine (except for
the initial complaint about the wrong number of parameters).  It can't
yet seem to find Powerpoint, and it won't produce any output from Word,
even though it seems to step through the process.

I also discovered GS4Word, which works well except that it doesn't seem
to handle internal links in Word documents, as promised by GhostWord.  

Bill
-- 
Bill Harris                                 
Facilitated Systems                          
http://facilitatedsystems.com/              

Bill Harris <bill_harris@facilitatedsystems.com> writes:

> a .tmp instead of a
> .ps filename extension is a problem.

This is working for me, so I don't think so.
My print file is always My Documents\p.prn
 

-- 
Brian (remove the sport for mail)
http://www.et.dtu.dk/staff/be/be.html

Yash wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Can someone recommend a free application that can convert a Word 2000
> document to PDF format, preserving all hyperlinks and not inserting
> any watermarks?
>
> Thanks

I'm using PDF creator at <http://sector7g.wurzel6.de/pdfcreator/>, but
am running into this error:

Error-Nr:	484 (Problem getting printer information from
the system.  Make sure the printer is set up correctly.)

Modul:		frmMain
Procedure:	Form_Load
Line:		51040

right clicking on "test.doc" and selecting "Create PDF with PDFcreator"
gives that error message.

does PDF creator require a printer? I don't want to print anything,
just change .doc --> .pdf and, no, I don't have Word, just wordpad.
The idea is to "print" from wordpad, creating the .pdf file?



thanks,

Thufir Hawat

follow up to comp.text.pdf

thufir.hawat@mail.com wrote:
[..]
> I'm using PDF creator at <http://sector7g.wurzel6.de/pdfcreator/>,
but
> am running into this error:
>
> Error-Nr:	484 (Problem getting printer information from
> the system.  Make sure the printer is set up correctly.)
[..]

<http://www.go2pdf.com/> created a virtual printer named "Virtual PDF
Printer" with which PDFcreator works to create PDF's fine.  However,
there's a line reading "Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to
remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer".

I don't want to buy Virtual PDF Printer, I want to use the open source
PDFcreator for free.  How do I create a virtual PDF printer, please?


thanks,

Thufir Hawat

follow up to?

I'm using PDF creator, <http://sector7g.wurzel6.de/pdfcreator/>, and
go2pdf, <http://www.go2pdf.com/>.  The go2pdf made a virtual printer so
a .doc file could be right-clicked, and, by selecting "Create PDF with
PDFCreator", converted to .pdf.  However, this process leaves a
watermark which reads "Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to
remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer". Next I
installed the driver for the HP color LaserJet 3550.  The HP driver
doesn't create a .pdf that I can find because, presumably, it's a real
printer driver and not a virtual printer driver.

Must a virtual printer be created as
<http://masterdev.dyndns.dk/know/freepdf.html> describes?  there's no
mention of this on the PDFCreator page.


thanks,

Thufir Hawat