How to Create a PDF Document
PDF Budget Book for SVPAA Meetings Steps Summarized
#1. Download Adobe Acrobat Professional [Page 1].
#2. Prepare Document for Print [Page 2].
#3. Use the Various Options to Print or Save a Doc to PDF [Pages 2 – 8].
#4. Create and bundle multiple PDF files into a Budget Book [Pages 9 – 12].
#5. Learn an additional Acrobat Prof feature (bookmarks) to organize your PDF [Pages 13].
Step #1. Download a proper version of Adobe Acrobat Professional onto your computer.
It appears that the University of Utah has entered into an agreement with Adobe and, therefore, you should be able to download a version of Adobe Acrobat Professional from the OSL website, “free of charge.” Check with your IT person if you have further questions about getting this downloaded on your laptop or computer. Below are instructions using Adobe Acrobat Professional version 11 and using 2013 versions of Microsoft Word, Excel, and PPT. Most of these features we discuss in this document are only available via Adobe Acrobat Professional.
Step #2. Create, print ready, the document(s) you would like to PDF, within the program of your choice – Excel, Word, PowerPoint, BPC, etc…
To further clarify this, if you need to change an Excel document into a PDF, first create the Excel document in the desired format, ready to print as if you were printing the document to paper. If you desire to PDF a Word document, create the Word document with all the content and formatting you desire first and get it prepared as if you were printing to paper. Generally, first, you will prepare, print ready, your budget book document in Word, Excel or PowerPoint, and then you will proceed to the next step. We will even show you how to PDF a BPC print ready report.
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Step #3. Use the PDF options in your selected program to print your document(s) to PDF.
We will show you how this works in the main programs aforementioned – namely Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and BPC.
MICROSOFT WORD
There are multiple options to save a Word document as a PDF (or “print to PDF” as some will say). They are to be found in both tabs shown below, “File” or “Acrobat.” We will show you both. These options should appear also in Excel and PPT if you have downloaded the Acrobat Professional software.
PDF Print Option #1. Go to “File” button, “Save As” or “Save as Adobe PDF.” If you do the “Save As”
option, simply select the location to save your file and change the “file type” to “PDF.”
Option #1 Option #2
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Option #1: “SAVE AS”
When you click “Save As” it will direct you to pick a location to save your document, select “Browse”
unless you see the folder above in the folder list under “Recent.” Once you have selected “Browse” a dialogue box pops up suggesting to find the location (Desktop or other) where you would like to save your Word document. At this point you will select “PDF” from the “Save as Type.” This will save the document to your specified location as a PDF.
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Option #2: “SAVE AS ADOBE PDF”
This option saves a couple of steps. If you choose “Save as Adobe PDF” then the dialogue box below will pop up requesting you to save the file to a specific location (desktop, etc…). However, it already
specifies the “Save as type” as “PDF” as shown below. This is the preferred option but either way will work.
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Option #3: “PRINTING TO PDF”
This option can be done by simply selecting “File” and “Print” and choosing the “Adobe PDF” printer option from the “Printer” drop down listing as shown below. When you select “Print” it will then, instead of printing to a printer/paper, prompt you to save the PDF document to a file location of your choice. Choose the location and save.
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If you want to use the “Adobe” tab instead of “File” tab to save your document as a PDF then you will go to the “Adobe” tab and click “Create PDF” as shown below. This will also prompt you to select a file location to save the PDF document. Name your file and save it and you are done.
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WHAT ABOUT POWERPOINT & EXCEL? ARE THEY THE SAME?
Yes, all 2013 Microsoft software products are similar. Since these same options to save to PDF exist in PPT and Excel in the same locations, we will not go over them in detail. Instead we will show you pictures to demonstrate that the same options exist to print or save to PDF in PPT and Excel, see below.
MS EXCEL
MS PPT
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Saving a file/report in BPC to PDF
If you wish to print or save a report to PDF from BPC, please refer to the documentation on the BPC website called “Printing from BPC to a PDF for 16-17” in the “How To” Guides section of the website.
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Step #4. Combining all printed PDF documents into one PDF document to send to the budget director before April’s meeting.
Now that you have printed all your Word, Excel, PPT and BPC documents to PDF in separate files, if you would like to combine them all into one master PDF file to complete your budget book, then follow the step below. Below we will give you at least two specific options to combine the PDF’s into one and there are probably a few other ways not mentioned here that you could Google and use.
PDF Combining Option #1.
1st – Open Adobe Acrobat Professional.
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2nd – Choose the option. The next screen appears. This screen, shown below, allows you to drag and drop with your mouse, files of your choice and arrange them in the order you choose. If you wish, this screen will allow you to convert Word, Excel and PPT files into PDF’s as you drag and drop them on the screen, be careful though, the files must be “print ready” for best results, otherwise expect the unexpected. If you have already printed all your files into PDF and have them ready in a single folder or location, you can begin to drag and drop them in order into the screen shown below. As you drag items the pages will appear, as shown in the second image below. You can arrange them in the order you desire. The screen
immediately below will also allow you to “Add Files” from an entire folder. Use the “Add Files”
option in the upper left hand side of the screen if you don’t want to drag and drop using your mouse.
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3rd – When you have inserted all files into the aforementioned screen and arranged your pages in the desired order, please select at the bottom right corner of the screen. This will combine and create the PDF document.
PDF Combining Option #2 (Drag & Drop Pages or Entire Files).
1st – Open a PDF document of your choice as the final document to house all PDF’s.
2nd – Open another PDF you wish to insert into the first PDF you opened in the previous step.
3rd – Open the pages pane by clicking button in both open PDF files (as shown below).
4th – Simply click on a single (or multiple) page from your second PDF and drag it to the page pane of the first PDF.
Additionally, if you wish to drag an entire PDF file (not just a page or pages), you may drag the file by left clicking on it from its present location into the PDF page pane and it will insert in the same manner as described above, try it.
Left click PDF page in Doc #1 and drag it to the page pane in Doc #2 and release the left mouse click.
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Also, you can insert additional PDF pages by clicking the following icon if you don’t wish to use the drag and drop method:
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Step #5. Learn an additional Acrobat Prof feature (bookmarks) to organize your PDF.
We suggest using Adobe’s “Bookmark” features to organize your files for ease of perusing and
navigating through your finished budget books. Below are two links (click them and it will take you to the location via your default web browser) that can assist and show you how to create bookmarks and bookmark hierarchies to better organize your PDF for the final submission.
How to create a bookmark
How to create a bookmark hierarchy
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