How do I make a PDF of my Publisher file?

"I've put an application on the internet but it's a publisher file and I'm wondering should I put it up as a pdf as 1. people might not have publisher and 2. they can't change it.
But how do I make a pdf?  Is it worth the hassle?"

Many people will not have Publisher installed.  It is included in many versions of MS Office , but not all.  Also, it is often on a second CD, so often people will say "Publisher, what's Publisher?" and not install it.  Or else they might not look at the CD.  Either way, it would be vastly unwise to assume that your target audience will have this less than ubiquitous piece of software.  However, everyone has Adobe Reader .  It often comes pre-installed on new PCs, and is a free download if necessary.

Partially due to the ready availability of Adobe Reader, PDF has become a de facto standard for distributing documents.  PDFs cannot be changed by the recipient, which means that invoices, order forms etc. remain as designed without fear of anyone editing the wording.  PDFs also have great print support: it is easy to print out a PDF.

Adobe Acrobat is the tool used to create and edit and manipulate your PDFs, but if you just want to create them, you can get free tools online, e.g. Primopdf .  It's not open source, but it is completely free.

Once installed, a PDF printer will appear as a printer option in Publisher (and any other application).  When you choose to print to the pdf printer, you will be asked you where to save it, and hey presto, your PDF is created.

OpenOffice includes the ability to create PDFs as standard.