best software for pdf

shifty_uk

shifty_uk

shifty_uk

Soldato
Joined
27 Sep 2004
Posts
13,747
Location
.
Can anyone give me any suggestions....
What would be the best software to use for creating pdf documents?

I was thinking Illustrator, but it's pretty difficult getting the margins etc correct.

Thanks!
 
shifty_uk said:
Thanks dude, doesn't help me though. Sorry.


Basically, I'm making a cv but microsoft word sucks and illustrator is no good for getting spacing and margins correct.

Here is the type of effect I am after:
http://www.andreaswannerstedt.se/cv/cv.pdf

What software do you think this guy made his CV in?
Click to expand...
Few points:
  • There's nothing in that example that you couldn't do in Word, what exactly don't you like about it?
  • PDF is one of the worst formats you can use if you're going to be submitting your CV to agencies (or even just large employers) as a text search of the file won't bring up the content. Agencies rely on searching based on keywords to find candidates.
  • You should concentrate on the content of your CV not the layout.
 
I use Sun OpenOffice with which there's a button to export to PDF. Works perfectly. Might be especially useful to you if you dont like Word.
 
Mickey said:
Few points:
  • There's nothing in that example that you couldn't do in Word, what exactly don't you like about it?
  • PDF is one of the worst formats you can use if you're going to be submitting your CV to agencies (or even just large employers) as a text search of the file won't bring up the content. Agencies rely on searching based on keywords to find candidates.
  • You should concentrate on the content of your CV not the layout.
Click to expand...

You can search PDF's content :confused:
 
shifty_uk said:
Thanks dude, doesn't help me though. Sorry.

Basically, I'm making a cv but microsoft word sucks and illustrator is no good for getting spacing and margins correct.

Here is the type of effect I am after:
http://www.andreaswannerstedt.se/cv/cv.pdf

What software do you think this guy made his CV in?
Click to expand...

It's pretty easy in Word. I converted it using a free PDF to Word tool and added the headers manually:

http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~akiller/cv.doc

:)

BTW, according to Acrobat (Document -> Security -> Show Security something) it says the original one was made using Illustrator CS2.
 
Last edited:
SherberT* said:
You can search PDF's content :confused:
Click to expand...
Not without a plugin to strip the text out of it, PDF is a relatively complicated format, you can run a plain text search on a word document.
 
SherberT* said:
You can search PDF's content :confused:
Click to expand...

on a pdf by pdf basis, whereas you can do a search for text in file with something like a doc, i imagine there are ways to do the same with a pdf, but it's not as easy/something employers would bother doing
you want your cv to be as available to them as possible

as mentioned there is nothing there that couldnt be done in word
if you cant do that in word, then you suck at using word
 
Abraham said:
on a pdf by pdf basis, whereas you can do a search for text in file with something like a doc, i imagine there are ways to do the same with a pdf, but it's not as easy/something employers would bother doing
you want your cv to be as available to them as possible

as mentioned there is nothing there that couldnt be done in word
if you cant do that in word, then you suck at using word
Click to expand...


If your employer cannot be bothered to look/search your PDF, you've got bigger problems than presenting it in a pretty format....

And if you're going to work in IT, it may even work in your favour that you produce a PDF rather than a .doc
 
JonC said:
If your employer cannot be bothered to look/search your PDF, you've got bigger problems than presenting it in a pretty format....

And if you're going to work in IT, it may even work in your favour that you produce a PDF rather than a .doc
Click to expand...
It's not really a question of whether they can be bothered to read it, it's the mechanisms in place to filter out the hundreds/thousands of CVs not matching the criteria given which is usually done with simple keyword matching by agencies/organisations who receive a lot of CVs.

I have no idea how you think making the CV harder to find is going to work in your favour.
 
JonC said:
If your employer cannot be bothered to look/search your PDF, you've got bigger problems than presenting it in a pretty format....

And if you're going to work in IT, it may even work in your favour that you produce a PDF rather than a .doc
Click to expand...

like i said, unless you're applying for just one job where you're confident they'll read your pdf application then it is beneficial to have it in the most accessible format possible, which is not pdf, especially when pdf doesnt provide many benefits over using a word doc or equivalent
 
We get CVs emailed through to us all the time and it really bugs me when people send them in pdf! So much so that I would say it puts them at a disadvantage before I even read it.
 
Why?

What format do you prefer? I don't use Microsoft Office, so it's either PDF or RTF. a lot of companies are moving away from MS Office too, layouts can change when opening different formats with different applications, but PDF's will always look the same.
 
The one I use is http://www.primopdf.com/ it's free and it seems to work well.

I usually convert my CV into PDF as it ensures the formatting is maintained at the other end no matter what application they use to open it unlike word which seems to have slight differences in the new 2007 version.

However these job sites and agencies prefer it in word form as they like to extract your contact details.
 
As has been said above there's nothing in that CV that couldn't be done in Word and converted with a PDF printer.

However...........have a look at Adobe InDesign. Complete overkill for a 1 or 2 page CV but it's intended for designing print layouts.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom