If you use Microsoft Word you may not know how to generate PDF since MS Word on MS Windows does not have the capability of exporting in PDF. (Microsoft Word on Mac OS X does have the ability to export in PDF.) You can convert MS Word file formats to PDF using any of several other programs.

OpenOffice.org Writer

OOWriter is the word-processing component of a suite of programs comparable in function to Microsoft Office. The OpenOffice.org suite is free software, that is, freely modifiable and redistributable. It can be downloaded at no cost and is available for most operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux, Solaris, Irix, and FreeBSD. (See port status for the systems on which OpenOffice.org is currently available.) OpenOffice.org Writer can import a variety of file formats, including Microsoft Word formats, and export in a variety of formats, including PDF. Since Microsoft's .doc file formats have until recently been secret, OpenOffice.org writer is occasionally unable to handle some aspect of an MS Word file, but this is not very common. OpenOffice.org Writer can also import and export in Open Document Format.

DeskPDF

This is a commercial product for Microsoft Windows available at low cost.

Adobe Distiller

Adobe created Portable Document Format and sells a number of products for working with PDF. Their flagship product is Adobe Acrobat, which has many features but is not cheap. The more basic Acrobat Elements is also able to convert to PDF. These programs are available for both Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. Adobe also has a web-based subscription service for converting documents to PDF with rates currently as low as US$9.99 per month

Acknowledgements	Copyright © 2007 Northwest Journal of Linguistics	ISSN 1718-8563