Downloader: PDFCreator, following in the aged footsteps of Foobar and VLC, reaches version 1.0

Monday, June 21, 2010

PDFCreator, following in the aged footsteps of Foobar and VLC, reaches version 1.0

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Open Source

The end of the 21st century's first decade is shaping up to be a period full of portentious software fruition! The year 2008 saw the release of WINE 1.0 after an epic 15 years of development; in 2009, after only 13 years, VLC reached 1.0; and then, earlier this year, Foobar hit 1.0 after a meager 7 years. Today, PDFCreator adds itself to the open source hall of fame, with version 1.0.0 now available to download.

If you've never used PDFCreator, you'd be forgiven -- there are a ton of PDF authoring tools out there, after all -- but now, with v1.0, you really should give PDFCreator a go! Basically, PDFCreator installs itself as a printer. To create PDFs, you send a document to the PDFCreator -- just like you would to your inkjet or laser printer. It's as simple and foolproof as that.

There are other neat functions that have been added over the 8 years of development, however! You can convert documents from the context menu -- just right-click a document. There's command line functionality, if you like doing it the hard way, and it will also run on Terminal Servers. You can use it to 'print' other document types too, like PNG or BMP or JPG -- ideal, if you're trying to generate a truly 'open' file that can be read by anyone!

The only drawback is that PDFCreator only runs on Windows. Still, there are plenty of alternatives for Mac and Linux.