- home | Tutorials
- Create a Form
A tutorial in 3 steps - Create a PDF
from any document - Create Form Fields
using Adobe Acrobat - Conduct a Survey
The do's and dont's...
how to create a PDF document
2. Acrobat Distiller
Next, you have to "distill" the PostScript file. This is the step in which you create the actual PDF:
- Open Acrobat Distiller (from the "All Programs" menu or directly from Acrobat Professional).
- Drop my_form.ps onto the distiller window that just opened.
You should now have a file called my_form.pdf at the same location as the .ps file, and yes, this is the PDF file you've struggled so hard to get.
Why all that fuzz about creating a PDF, instead of simply saving or exporting?
Here are the reasons:
- File size - Your PDF file is now as optimized and compact as it can get.
- Resemblence - Your PDF file is now as close to your original file as it can get (if not, change your settings ("edit profile") in the distiller application...)
Distiller Settings, often the culprit - Compatibility - since the distiller created your file, you now have an "Adobe PDF", which is something else than a plain PDF. Your PDF will guaranteed look the same on every screen on every computer on every platform all over the world - in this AND future versions of Acrobat.
- Type faces - every font used in the form is now embedded as a subset (subsetting embedded fonts reduces file size dramatically), meaning that the folks viewing your PDF don't need to have the fonts installed on their local computer in order to enjoy your document in its full glory.
NOTE: the Distiller settings can mess things up - document size, color correction, font embedding and everything else that can go wrong is controlled from here.
In the next tutorial you will add fields to your form, so that it may be filled out on the screen using Adobe Reader / Acrobat Reader.
Next: How to create fillable fields...