Introduction
All of the PDF writers in this review are programs that function by creating a pseudo printer on your system. When you want to create a PDF document from pretty much any application, you just choose to print it to the PDF printer and it creates a PDF document. The thing that distinguishes one product from another is the number of available options.
One problem with this approach is that you need to have a program that is able to open the file on your system. If someone sends you a file created with a program you do not have, then you won't be able to open that file; therefore, you will not be able to print it. Since you can't print, you can't convert it to a PDF using a pseudo printer technique either.
The two online products in this review do not suffer from this problem, but are limited only by the file formats recognized by the online vendor.
I've selected the best free products in this review by eliminating those PDF writers, suggested by readers, that were either not free or were limited time trials and basically adware (the product was free but forced the user to endure various ads as a punishment for using it).
These are Bullzip PDF Printer, PDF24, PDFCreator and doPDF
Which one of these is the best? Well, that really depends on the options you need.
Discussion
Recommending the best product for all users is not always easy because of differing user requirements. For example, most of the recommended writers have many options and while this is a plus for advanced users it is a minus for those who only want a simple PDF writer. Presently, I am most taken with BullZip and PDF24, but all of these programs have their individual strengths and weaknesses.
BullZip in its latest version is a very solid program that has, over time, proven to be a top performer.
Key features of Bullzip PDF Printer include the ability to:
- Password protect your PDF files (PDFCreator also has this ability)
- Use either 40 or 128 bit encryption on the file (PDFCreator also has this ability)
- Add a watermark (PDFCreator has a limited ability to add watermarks)
- Append or prepend files (PDFCreator also has this ability)
- Choose different levels of output quality (All but CutePDF has this ability)
- Add or change metadata (PDFCreator also had this ability).
PDFCreator in its latest version is another strong choice and has all the features of Bullzip with the exception of a 64 bit version and more limited watermark abilities. The help files are available only in English, French and German.
However, it does have one unique feature among these products: it comes with both a standalone and a server installer. In a company setting this gives you the ability to install the printer driver on a server and make it available to all the workstations on the network without doing an install on each one of them. This may make it a preferred choice in business situations if you don't need the other options that products like Bullzip offer. Version 0.9.8 of PDFCreator did a great job printing a web page to a PDF. Warning: The PDFCreator installer is bundled with OpenCandy. See our information page here for more details.
doPDF is comparable to TinyPDF in terms of features. It provides a minimal feature set but does have the ability to choose different levels of output qualityn
The most commonly asked question by readers has been about the size of the output file. Please refer to the table shown below:
| PDF writer | Output from small test file (without graphics) | Output from large test file (inluding graphics) (600 dpi) |
| Bullzip | 48 KB | 34 MB |
| PDF24 | 83 KB | 39 MB |
| PDFCreator | 25 KB | N/A* |
| doPDF | 35 KB | 53 MB |
Other PDF Writers
These are a number of other free PDF writers which were brought up in comments here or noted from other sources. As they are not rated in this review, I am listing them here with brief descriptions and links to their sites for ease of reference.
- PrimoPDF, a lag of several seconds from the time I selected the printer until the screen with the Primo interface opened. On my fast computer it worked reasonably well but is still much slower than all other products.
- NitroPDF Printer has both writer and reader capabilities, supports annotation, text extraction, but full feature set only found in the paid version.
- PDF Redirect has both writer and reader capabilities, can merge PDFs, offers encryption, multi-language support, no adware, but a full feature set is only available in the paid version.
- PDFill PDF and Image Writer, many options and stable. Warning: Downloads from Cnet (Download.com) now require the use of a proprietary installer. This can install additional components you might not want.
- PDF XChange comes with a tabbed interface and zoom-in feature, supports notes, annotations and export options. It has several restrictions, ads supported and installs the ASK toolbar unless you opt-out during setup.
