PDF Files

[MMustola]

Can anyone recommend a good software package that would allow me to merge different files together into one PDF file.

Is there anything free that can be downloaded that is good.

Is Adobe the best route to take?

My gaol is is to merge the inspecton report, contract, and house photo's together. These are currently all different formats.

[kurt]

.pdfFactory

It's wonderful, and relatively cheap; only $49.95.

You can open anything, print to pdfFactory, and it will keep catenating the docuements together in a string. I use it to print my reports, then include pages from websites, or any other documents & it strings them all together.

You can do the same thing in Adobe, but you have to print to Adobe, then join them all together. In .pdfFactory, it's linear.

[Chris Bernhardt]

I use adobe acrobat to merge my report build which is made up several files in MS word. I was to afraid to try the knockoffs or depend on them. I just hate it when the client or rather the realtor is bitching at me about getting the report out to them this instant and then my software starts going nuts.

Chris, Oregon

[Erby]

I've paid for a couple of the cheap versions only to have them fail on me.

For the last couple of years, I've used the free PDF Machine from Broadgun Software.

http://www.pdfmachine.com/genp/download.shtml

Hasn't failed me yet.

The only trick was deciding the order I wanted to print things in.

I would print the cover page and save the file but leaving it open.

Then open and print the next file. It appends to the end of the open cover page.

Open the nexst file and print it. It appends to the end of the open cover page with the first file added.

Continue until the file size is out of hand.

Just ran a test by printing

this topic,

a one page Excel spreadhseet,

a single JPG,

a 7 page word document,

another PDF File 18 pages of text & illustrations)open in Adobe Reader,

an e-mail (two pages) from microsoft outlook,

and a map file from Streets & trips

Total file size for the finished PDF was 831 KB.

Of course now I use the Homegauge software and upload it to the site instead of sending PDF's by e-mail.

Works much slicker for me (after I spent some time customizing the software, report layout, and boiler plate to suit me.)

[rjw]

I use WordPerfect (currently at X3 version) to produce my reports, in which I can easily enter hyperlinked cross references and a ToC, add images, and directly produce a pdf.

It is more versatile, intuitive and stable than Word. And automation with macros is much easier but still powerful.

When I have to write simple memos to share with folks, I'll use Word.

When I want to process a document, I use WordPerfect.

[Chris Bernhardt]

Mark, you said that your picture pages are in a different format or at least I assume that is what you meant. If so what program are you using?

You can suck your pictures into word or word perfect and format and mark them up pretty much any way you want. Does anybody use a separate program to make picture pages that they think is better?

One thing I learned and it took me awhile to get around to it was to knock the size of my pictures down to around 50K or otherwise adobe takes a light year and half to convert them.

Chris, Oregon

[kurt]

I store photos in a Filemaker Pro library, along w/ everything else.

With .pdfFactory, I can write the report in any program I want, print it, go to the Filemaker Library, print what I want out of that. I change my mind around on software a fair amount, & use different programs for different stuff to suit the particular mood of the day.

.pdf printers that catenate files into a single string allow that approach.

[Phillip]

Kurt,

Where did you get pdffactory from?

[kurt]

http://www.fineprint.com/

It's similar to the .pdfMachine that Erby uses; you can catenate documents together.

This particular feature was lost on me when I got it, but it's become a major component of how I put reports together; it allows me to package everything into one .pdf very easily.

[MMustola]

As a follow up to my original post I intended up buying a copy of PDF Converter 4 by ScanSoft.

I am very happy with it. It will convert any file format to PDF. Also It is very easy to drag and drop many different files of different file types and combine them into one file.

[davidlord]

I use a full version of Adobe for my inspection software but the software that I use for my pest control company has pdffactory built in and it works great.

[zeb]

try pdf995.com

[Phillip]

At this time I am using the trial version of pdffactory. It working nice

[qhinspect]

At this time I am using the trial version of pdffactory. It working nice

I use the same software. Good choice.