Someone sent me an email a few days ago asking me how to go about creating a .pdf file that preserves hyperlinks. There is a lot of free software that allows you to create .pdf files from your documents. The problem is when you include hyperlinks in your document they are completely ignored. As an Internet Marketer those hyperlinks are valuable and may be worth shelling out the few bucks to upgrade to a version that keeps the hyperlinks in tact. However, there is a free approach to this. Might as well not spend any hard earned cash when you don’t have to.
The software that I use to do this is OpenOffice. OpenOffice is a business productivity suite much the same as Microsoft Office is but it is completely free. And from the individual applications you are able to export to .pdf files that maintain the hyperlinks. Also, the program is compatible with Mircrosoft Office so you can open files that were previously created using Microsoft Word, Excel, etc.
Here are the steps I use to create a .pdf from an existing Word document (.doc) using the free OpenOffice.org Write software:
First you have to download the Office suite from OpenOffice.org and install it.
- Open Write and open your document
- Click File|Export as PDF
- Click Export
- Specify a path and filename and click Save
Simple as that! Enjoy.
January 31, 2008
Miscellaneous