E-Geniuses.com Computer Services Blog

Have you ever emailed a document to someone only to find out that they cannot open it? This usually occurs when the recipient doesn’t have the program necessary to open it. Documents created in Microsoft Word and Excel requires that the recipient have Microsoft Office to open the document; this also applies if you’ve created it using Microsoft Works, Word Perfect and other document creation software. There are many different file formats and it is not likely that everyone will have all of the programs necessary to view any given document. Microsoft Office is not the standard format. The agreed upon standard for documents is the Portable Document Format (PDF). PDF’s can be opened by any computer that has Adobe Reader installed. It comes with most computers and is available for free on Adobe’s Website. PDF is the standard because it can be viewed on all computers, text is easily resizable and the document looks consistent on all computers. Here’s the catch: Adobe gives the program to be able to read PDF’s for free, but it charges about $300 for Adobe Acrobat which is the program needed to create the PDF files.

We’ve been called “computer geniuses” hence the name E-Geniuses, and now we’ll have to live up to that title. We don’t expect you to pay $300 to show a document the way it was intended. We have found a program that will allow you to create PDF’s for free. It’s an easy to use program called
CutePDF. To create a PDF, choose the option to “print” in the program you want to create the PDF from. Instead of choosing your printer, you will choose ‘CutePDF Writer’. You will be asked to save the PDF somewhere, I usually save to the desktop, but you can save anywhere. That’s it! You’ve created a PDF. Just attach that to your email and you will never have to take the blame for someone not being able to open your email attachments. If they cannot open it, it’s because they need to install Adobe Acrobat. If you would like to refer them to us, we would be glad to offer them the same high level of service that we offer you.

If you would like an E-Geniuses Technician to setup CutePDF on your computer along with instructions on how to use it, simply respond to this letting us know that you want us to install it. The installation is $20. You can pat yourself on the back for saving yourself $280.