How do I convert a Microsoft Word document to a PDF file?

While Microsoft Word is arguably the most popular word processor for professional use, distributing Word documents on the Internet is problematic for two reasons:

Not everyone runs Microsoft Word
Word documents are easily changed

The standard format for document distribution on the Internet is Adobe PDF (PDF stands for "portable document format"). So if you're writing an ebook, you'll probably use Microsoft Word to create it but you'll want to convert the Word file (which usually ends in ".doc") into a PDF file (which usually ends in ".pdf"). This is actually very easy to do with a free application called Writer, part of the OpenOffice office suite.

To convert your Microsoft Word document to a PDF, simply load the Word file into Writer. Then use the Export as PDF... menu item (in the File menu) to convert it to a PDF file. That's all there is to it!

Note: Writer's support for Word files is not perfect. You should always examine the generated PDF closely to ensure that the document is correct. Commercial conversion solutions are available as well, and you may have to resort to one of them instead.

One commercial product is InvestInTech's Able2Doc, which can instantly convert a PDF file to a Word document and is very easy to use. A more comprehensive product, Able2Extract, is also available for converting to Excel and other formats.