How to Create PDF File on Mac and Windows

Now that so many people are working remotely, it is more accepted than ever that official documents are sent digitally – and most are sent as PDFs.

In case you are unfamiliar with the background of this format, PDF stands for Portable Document Format and was created by Adobe in the early 1990s to enable people and organizations to create exact digital versions of documents. paper. The idea was that the document was an exact, immutable copy of the original (while some PDFs can now be edited, you can create a PDF that cannot).

Since then, PDFs have become a standard for sending official documents. If you need to send something legally, you will probably be asked to send it as a PDF.

You can create PDF from paper document by scanning it and saving the scan as PDF. But what if you look at a document online and need to save it as a PDF?

It’s really easy for both Mac and Windows PC users. And it’s done the same way in both: you “print” the document to a PDF file. These instructions are for printing a web document using the Chrome browser, but it works for any application that has a print function.

• Click on the three dots in the upper right corner.
• Click on “Print …”

• The print window will appear with a preview box on the left and a series of features on the right. Next to the “Destination” label, click the drop-down menu and select “Save as PDF”.

• If you have a multi-page document and want to create a PDF only using a specific page or page range, click the drop-down menu next to the “Pages” label, choose “Custom” and enter the pages on which you want to save. (It works just like sending the pages to a printer.)

Note that when you print a web page to a PDF, you are printing the entire page, not just what’s currently visible in the browser. So it’s a good idea to check in the preview area what is printed and print only the pages you need – it’s much harder to edit a PDF document later.