Today I downloaded a Word Document from my University Webmail, containing details on what to expect on the first week back in September. The problem was I haven’t got Word installed on my PC yet as I installed a fresh copy of Windows 7 only yesterday and so it’s a little bare on the software front. I had got Acrobat Reader, the software that allows you to view PDF files. Therefore I set about looking to see if I could find a tool allowing me to quickly and of course “Freely” convert the .doc file into a PDF. A quick Google search pointed me to Doc2PDF.net and PDF Online.

Doc2PDF.net allows you to quickly choose the file you want to convert from your Local Machine and quickly see the result in seconds. It converted the 150k Document in seconds and opened immediately in Acrobat Reader within the Browser.

PDF Online also allows you to quickly upload a .DOC file, as long as it is under 2MB in size, and convert it into a PDF. The only downside to this service is you will need to give your e-mail address in order for the service to send you the PDF.

There were some differences in the converted document between the two services:

On the Left is PDF Online on the Right is Doc2PDF

As clearly shown the there are differences between how the two Services have converted the Files. PDF Online is actually much closer almost exact to the original Word (.DOC) file.

Overall if you want to quickly and simply convert Word Documents, Powerpoint Documents or Excel Documents both services are able to offer this for free. If you don’t wish to give out your e-mail address the Doc2PDF is for you however if you want more accuracy* to the original document the try PDF Online. (* I only tried this one document and therefore Doc2PDF maybe more accurate with other documents.)

By: Mark