Save a document as a pdf from Word

I want to be able to save the documents I've written in Word directly to a pdf, in much the same way as OpenOffice.org allows you to do.

Software such as Distiller($5000) and Acrobat($300) are out of the question due to their steep price tags. Are there any good, free (read: no ads or spyware) programs which will allow me to save a Word document directly as a pdf? Are there any reasonably priced programs which can do this?

 

Sort of an odd question since you answered it yourself. OpenOffice.org is most likely the best one for the job if price matter since it's free. staroffice could also do it mind you.

I'm sure there are most likely some other ones out there but they'd most likely have even more conversion issues then OpenOffice.org so I wouldn't recommend using them.

 

http://www.cutepdf.com/ or http://pdfcreator.sf.net/

Both applications create virtual local printers that create PDF documents. Both are free. PDFCreator is GPL FOSS.

 

Fantastic, Da Chicken.

Both the programs you recommended worked perfectly. However, for anyone else looking to solve this problem, I'd recommend using PDFCreator. Beyond the obvious FOSS advantage, I found that, compared to CutePDF, it created better looking documents, was easier to install, and allowed more customization options for more advanced users looking to tweak the save settings in every way possible.

As a bonus, both these programs set themselves up as printers, so you can save as a pdf anything you can print. This goes above and beyond what I was looking for (creating pdf documents in Word).

 

I use PDFCreator myself, and was also overjoyed when I finally found something like it. It works very well. The default location for the output to go to is a little obscure, but after changing that to the more sane My Documents folder I was happy.

I found CutePDF a bit easier to install and a little less geeky to use. That's the only reason I mentioned it.