PDF files are like electronic documents, easily transferable, easy to send as attachments to email, easy to view on the web. The acronym stands for “postcript document format” files, a reference to Adobe Postscript. The classic way to produce PDF files is by having an Adobe software product called Adobe Acrobat. There are lots of other ways these days. Business Plan Pro automatically produces PDF files as one of the export formats. The Mac produces PDF files as an alternative to printing.

If you’re not familiar with the various tools to create the right kind of files, find out from friends, check wikipedia on PDF or google  creating a PDF file.  I use PDF995 as a simple free PDF generator, so I can print from my computer to create the PDF file as if I were just printing to a printer. Business Plan Pro exports anything to a PDF format too, so if you’re working in Business Plan Pro you could create the PDF file automatically, but to be honest, I prefer the raw BPDX file instead. That’s a special case.

If you’re using a Macintosh, at least if it’s a relatively new Macintosh, there is an automatic facility to print your documents to PDF files. It’s related to the Preview application on Macintosh. Use the Print command on the file menu and you’ll get something like the one shown here, which is taken from the Print dialog that comes up with PowerPoint 2007.

Move your mouse over the PDF button on the lower left, and push to open a drop down menu.

Select “Save to PDF” and use the Finder to set a file name.

That will be the PDF file you can use to send to me as an attachment to your email.

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