Creating PDF files in Unix and Windows Environments

Unix/Linux Environments

• pdftex/pdflatex
  You can use the unix commands pdftex and pdflatex to create PDF files from TeX documents.

  pdftex filename.tex filename.pdf

  or

  pdflatex filename.tex filename.pdf
  

  Check the man pages for more options or pdftex support: http://www.tug.org/applications/pdftex/


• ps2pdf
  Yu can convert PostScript output of a TeX file to PDF format. For this, first you need to compile your TeX file with LaTeX and get the PS output.

  latex filename.tex
  dvips filename.dvi -o filename.ps
  

  To convert postScript to PDF you need to do:

  ps2pdf filename.ps
  

  The command, ps2pdf is part of Ghostscript program. For more about the options for ps2pdf check out http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/doc/AFPL/6.50/Ps2pdf.htm


• enscript and a2ps
  You can use the unix commands enscript or a2ps to convert your text files to postscript. For this you need to have access to a PostScript printer. Having that, you need to do:

  enscript filename.txt -o filename.ps
  

  or

  a2ps filename.txt -o filename.ps
  

  and then

  ps2pdf filename.ps
  



• PStill
  PStill can convert PS/EPS/TIFF/JPEG files to PDF. It can also be used as Windows PDF printer, producing PDF directly from any application. If you're going to use PStill on Linux for personal or educational reasons the program is free. You can download it from http://www.wizards.de/~frank/pstill.html#DLPSTILL


• StarOffice and OpenOffice
  tarOffice is a popular office suite for Linux and UNIX (there's also a Windows version). StarOffice 6.0 and it's Open Source counterpart OpenOffice can actually print directly to PDF. Checkout the following links for further details: http://www.openoffice.org/ and http://wwws.sun.com/software/star/staroffice/.

Windows Environments

The easiest way to create a PDF file in Windows, is to install a PostScript printer on your machine and print any document to a file using this virtual printer. You can download PS printer drivers from: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=44&platform=Windows
Then you can convert the output (PostScript) file to PDF using the ps2pdf command in a Unix or Linux environment, or use one of the options below.

• Ghostscript
  Ghostscript is an interpreter for the PostScript language and for PDF, and related software and documentation. Checkout http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/ for more details.


• Miktex
  Includes lots of great TeX utilities including pdftex and pdflatex which can be used at the DOS command prompt. You can download this free software from http://www.miktex.org/.


• PDF995 and Omniformat Freeware
  You can create PDF files with PDF995 (http://www.pdf995.com/download.html). Once you install the PDF995 Printer Driver, you can print your files using the PDF995 printer and have the output in PDF format. For converting your existing files to PDF you can download and use the free software (Omniformat) at this link: http://www.omniformat.com/download.html.


• Cygwin
  Cygwin is a Unix-like environment for Windows, that allows you to use lots of Unix software in a Windows environemnt. Checkout www.cygwin.com for details and download.


• Adobe Acrobat Distiller
  Acrobat Distiller (not free, unlike Acrobat Reader) converts documents to PDF. You can download it from: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/main.html


• PrimoPDF v2.0
  Free PDF creator from www.primopdf.com