Category: Toys, Tools, Tech
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Well, it took them a decade, it only works in Office 2007, and you have to download an optional add-on to do it, but you can finally have a "Save as PDF" option in Microsoft Office. No more need for hacks like a PDF printer driver.
Of course, the add-on also lets you save your file in XPS/"Metro" format. (XPS is Microsoft's new PDF-killer.) Which should be useful for all of five or six people.
UPDATE (March 4, 2007): Raymond Chen points out in the comments that Microsoft would have had "Save as PDF" earlier had not Adobe threatened to sue them if they did it. Which probably explains why the "Save as PDF" feature is provided as an optional download for Office 2007, too, rather than an out-of-the-box feature. Raymond is one of the world's better-known programmers, so I'm a little flattered that he bothered to take the time to correct me :-)
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One more checked-off task in the "Mac OS X 1.0 feature parity" list. ;)
Now if they would prove how they're not an abusive monopoly and release a Mac version of Office with their XML standard fully supported...
5 or 6 people - who are they ? Do you actually know 5 or 6 people who would save anthing to an XPS file - and then what would they do ? Look at it on their computer ? Certainly, they will not send it to anyone or try and print it as there are no printers available that can process XPS yet - oh, wait a minute, you can open an XPS file in ACROBAT * and then you can print it as a PDF - hoo-haa !
5 or 6 people - who are they ? Do you actually know 5 or 6 people who would save anthing to an XPS file - and then what would they do ? Look at it on their computer ? Certainly, they will not send it to anyone or try and print it as there are no printers available that can process XPS yet - oh, wait a minute, you can open an XPS file in ACROBAT * and then you can print it as a PDF - hoo-haa !
Adobe threatened to sue to block "Save as PDF". http://news.com.com/2100-1012_3-6079320.html Who's listening to customers and who isn't?
Thanks, Raymond -- I've updated the post with a link to that news.com story.