PDF Conversion

For most standard word processing programs such as Word and WordPerfect, generating a reliable PDF file does not seem to present any difficulties.  Simply using Adobe Acrobat directly does the trick. You can obtain Adobe Acrobat Reader free of charge, however, Adobe charges a fee for the full version of Acrobat.   As an alternative, you may wish to try PStill, which is a free PostScript to PDF converter.  You can also find additional information concerning PFD conversion at PDFzone.com.

Unfortunately, life is not so simple with TeX files.  The problem has to do both with the type of fonts that are used in your particular TeX implementation (bitmapped or type1), and which fonts are embedded when the PDF file is created. Using bitmapped (.pk) fonts degrades the quality of the resulting PDF file.  Failing to embed the correct fonts results in PDF files that are unintelligible.  The latter problem seems to be especially bad with documents generated by Scientific Word.  One quick and dirty approach that often works to solve the second problem is the following:

1. Install a postscript printer driver on your system.  For example, Apple LaserWriter 16/600 PS is one that should be available on most Windows systems. 
   
   

2. When you print your DVI,  choose your postscript printer and then print the result to file.
   
   

3. Be sure that you save this file as *.ps instead of *.prn or whatever other default file type is offered. 
   
   

4. The final step is to convert this PS file into a PDF.  This should be immediate. Acrobat Distiller should be able to take the file you generated in step 3 and produce a readable PDF file.  You simply need to open Distiller and drop in the PS file.

The solution above is not very elegant and does not solve the problem of using suboptimal font types.  Much better solutions are available, but they require a bit more effort.  Two of the leading commercial TeX implementation providers offer advice on their Websites.  The suggestions of Y&Y TeX may be found here, and those of PCTeX may be found here. Adobe also has some suggestions which may be found here.  Finally, you may also wish to refer to CTAN (the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network). Two programs they recommend are PDFTeX, which compiles TeX and LaTeX files directly into PDF, and MiKTeX, which is a free implementation of TeX that includes a PDF production utility.