Adobe Acrobat used to be required to save files into a PDF (Portable Document Format), but now Microsoft Office 2007 can do it for free, and it can also save files in the less popular XPS (XML Paper Specification) format. The following Office programs can save in PDF and XPS, but only Word will be used for this how-to tutorial:

• Microsoft Office Access 2007
• Microsoft Office Excel 2007
• Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007
• Microsoft Office OneNote 2007
• Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007
• Microsoft Office Publisher 2007
• Microsoft Office Visio 2007
• Microsoft Office Word 2007

To see if Microsoft Word can save files as PDF or XPS, click on the Office button in the top left of your screen, then click Save As. If you see "Learn about add-ins to save to other formats such as PDF or XPS," then you’ll need to download the add-ins to add this feature to your Office applications.

To see if Microsoft Word can save files as PDF or XPS, click on the Office button in the top left of your screen, then click Save As. If you see "Learn about add-ins to save to other formats such as PDF or XPS," then you’ll need to download the add-ins to add this feature to your Office applications.

The Save as PDF and Save as XPS, add-ins, or plug-ins, are available to download from Microsoft for free. The official pages…

• Save as PDF
• Save as XPS
• Save as PDF or XPS

… which requires the installation of an active-x object that does a Windows Genuine Advantage Office validation. To bypass the validation check you can use the following links to download the files directly from Microsoft.

• Save As PDF
• Save as XPS
• Save as PDF or XPS

Microsoft realizes some people might not have a legal copy of their software, so they want you to voluntarily submit to having your software tested with their Windows Genuine Advantage Office validation software to make sure it’s legal before you can download add-ins, or even service packs. However, even Microsoft provides direct links to their files without the validation as demonstrated above, because they don’t want to alienate anyone who could be potential future customers.

After you install your Save as PDF and Save as XPS add-ins you can click the Office button, click Save As, and you will now see the option to "Publish a copy of the document as a PDF or XPS file." If you try that option you will see …

the "Save as type" is now PDF, or if you can change the type to XPS. Rather than Save As you will instead see a "Publish" button, because you are converting, saving, and publish the file form one format into the PDF, or XPS, format. If you blog, or do some other form of online publishing, you have a choice available to reduce the size of the file.

What if you don’t own Microsoft Office 2007? There is free software available to create, edit, convert, and publish files in PDF format without using Microsoft Office 2007. Click here to find out what you’ll need, and how to make free PDF files.