Where can I fax something for free? What is the best way to send a fax for free? We’ll show you how anyone can easily send a fax from any internet-connected computer using PDF.Live’s free trial. 

Faxing may be rare in the modern era, but it’s still considered the standard for sending and receiving documents for certain types of organizations. For example, many healthcare providers fax documents to other healthcare practices, to adhere to certain privacy regulations (HIPAA). Educational institutions and law firms may also require important documents or statements to be faxed. 

However, it’s become less and less common for the average person to have access to a fax machine, whether through their place of work or at home. Also, as you know, a physical fax machine requires a physical version of the document. So, if you don’t have a printer OR a fax machine, you’ve got to head to a retailer that offers both of those services. They’re out there – UPS, FedEx, Office Depot and Staples offer those services, but not for free. This unwieldy process can be mitigated by using a free online fax service that functions entirely in your web browser. A free online fax service allows you to send digital versions of documents that are on your computer to someone else’s fax machine, without having to print them.

Step-by-Step Guide to Online Faxing 

We’ll use PDF.Live’s online fax service to explain how online faxing works. Requirements: The sender must have an internet-connected computer and the receiver must have a fax machine that’s connected to a phone line or a digital account that is set up to receive faxes.

1. Head to the PDF.Live Studio to send faxes online. Click the Fax button. 

Either drag and drop your PDF from your computer into the PDF tool or click Select File to Fax and navigate to where your PDF is stored on your computer. 

2. Upload your PDF to the Fax tool or select a PDF you’ve already stored in the PDF.Live editor to fax.

3. Enter the recipient’s information into the Faxing Options.

PDF.Live’s fax tool will now have you review your faxing options before you send your document. Because faxing is like sending a digital letter, this is where you’re writing out the address information for yourself and the recipient, so we know where to send it. The Send To: Enter Fax Number refers to the phone number that the recipient provided for you to fax to. 

You can also enable the Add Free Custom Cover Letter option to add a fax cover sheet for your document. This ensures that the information contained within won’t be immediately viewable for someone who glances at or picks up the document. It also acts as a cover sheet if your document is more official and helps to make sure the document gets to the intended recipient.

4. Select Send.

For this step, you will need a PDF.Live Limited or Unlimited account. Why do we require you to set up an account? We require an email address to send the confirmation that your fax went through (or, a notification in case it doesn’t go through).

Once you’re signed in, you can click Send to begin transmitting the fax to your recipient.

It will take a couple of minutes to dial and transmit the fax to your recipient, so DO NOT CLOSE the window until the popup signals that your fax is complete. 

When the fax has been successfully received, the popup will change to this:

You will also receive a confirmation email regarding your fax and the document that you sent. If the document couldn’t be sent, you will see an error message like this: 

You will also get an email stating that your fax wasn’t successfully delivered. Be sure to pay attention to this last step to ensure that your fax is properly sent and received! You can use PDF.Live’s services for a limited number of tasks every day, including if you want to try out the fax service. To send more faxes and have unlimited access to other features, you can set up a low-cost monthly subscription. The unlimited plan offers access to editing tools to create, edit, and fax PDFs. You can even add a fax cover sheet using PDF.Live’s online tool.

The post How to Fax a PDF from a Computer appeared first on pdf.live.

This quick tutorial shows how teachers can use PDFLive to turn PDFs into editable, fillable forms that students can use on their devices for homework and studying. 

There are a lot of reasons to reduce the volume of paper used in the classroom. Digital and remote classes make physical papers difficult to distribute and collect. Environmental concerns have led to reducing the use of paper as well as plastic pens, binders, and other materials needed to organize paper handouts. 

Finding the right digital alternative to physical paper is no easy task. Not every student will have access to the same document editing software. Documents that you, the teacher, create may lose their formatting settings when opened by a student. 

This is why PDFs are so useful. The portable document format, or PDF, is easy to create and will look the same no matter who opens it on any device. PDFs are the best format to distribute syllabi, study guides, and even worksheets that students can fill out. This allows any student to do their homework entirely on their computer rather than writing on paper. 

In this article, we’re going to cover how you can work with PDFs using PDF.Live’s online PDF editor tool. The editor tool allows you to make alterations to the settings and format of a PDF. 

How to Make an Editable PDF

Before you make a PDF editable, you may be wondering how you can make a PDF in the first place? The document editing software you already use has this capability. How do we know this? 

Well, if you’ve built a worksheet or syllabus in a doc editor, you’ve probably printed it. When printing, you’ll usually select your printer in the Destination section. Then, if you click the dropdown next to it, you’ll see Save as PDF as an option. Your experience may differ, depending on your operating system (iOS vs Windows, for example), but generally, most software programs allow you to save as PDF from the printing functions. 

This will save your document as a PDF file instead of printing a physical copy. If you simply want to distribute a worksheet that your students will then print and fill out, emailing or uploading a PDF is by far the best option. This will ensure every student can print out the same version of the worksheet with no changes in formatting settings. 

If you create a Microsoft Word Document and upload the file as, say, a .doc or .docx file, there’s a good chance the page’s margins and lines will be altered. This can lead to students being confused about where one question begins and another ends, or having enough space to fill out the answer for a question. 

However, if you want your students to work with the document in an entirely digital format, we have a solution for you. 

Form Field Recognition 

What is form field recognition? This term is the name of a tool contained within the PDF.Live editor that will find fields within a PDF that are intended to be filled out by the person using the document. It will add a fillable form field to the line so that text can be typed within the PDF. In this example, every slightly shaded in box above an empty line is a fillable field:

(Source: FDIC “Smart Money Instructor Guide” for classrooms.)

So how do you access the form field recognition tool? 

Upload your PDF to our online editor selecting the Edit PDF option in the PDF.Live Studio.

Once you’ve selected this option, either upload a PDF from your computer or select a PDF already uploaded to the editor. 

Once you’ve done this, select Continue. In the PDF.Live editor toolbar, navigate to Form Fill tab and select Insert Text Field within the Form tab of the toolbar. 

With this tool selected, you can now create text fields in the PDF that someone can fill out! 

To create a new field, click and drag anywhere on your PDF. The new box will then be a fillable field for anyone with access to your PDF. 

Once you’ve created fields, simply click one of the text fields with the tool active. You can then resize, move, or delete them by clicking the trash can icon. 

Once you’re happy with your form fields, select Download in the top right-hand corner of the editor to get a copy of your PDF with fillable fields applied to it.  

In this example, we’ve opened the fillable form PDF in a web browser. We’ve filled in a couple of fields with text. Once all text has been filled in, when downloading the PDF, the owner will be prompted to download a new version of the PDF with changes. The “changes” represent the text that’s been typed out into the fillable forms within the PDF. 

Using this tool, you can send out worksheets to your students, have them fill them out, and send them back without any PDF editors or physical paper needed!

The post How Teachers Can Use PDFs in the Classroom appeared first on pdf.live.

So how do you make a fax cover sheet? What does a fax cover sheet look like? This guide will show you how to create a fax cover sheet and enclose it with your faxed document.

Many modern businesses prefer faxing documents as opposed to emailing or sharing them through a cloud storage service. Although this may initially seem inconvenient — and even a bit antiquated in the modern day of digital file transfers — you can actually fax documents online without the need to buy a fax machine or printer. 

When you send a fax, you should always include a fax cover sheet. 

A fax cover sheet, or cover letter, is a page added before your faxed document that provides some key information about you (the sender), the recipient, and the document that you’ve sent. You can think of a fax cover sheet as the envelope that encloses a letter that you want to send through the mail. Just like an envelope, the fax cover sheet also protects the content of the fax. The person who receives the fax can reference their identity with the sender’s identity that you’ve enclosed in the fax cover sheet to ensure they’re the correct recipient.

You don’t have to create a fax cover sheet when faxing a document, but it’s a great way for your fax to appear professional, reach the intended recipient, and stay private. 

So how do you make a fax cover sheet? What does a fax cover sheet look like? This guide will show you how to create a fax cover sheet and enclose it with your faxed document.

What Goes in a Fax Cover Sheet? 

Before, we mentioned how PDF.Live allows you to fax documents online. When doing this, the tool will actually create a fax cover letter for you. That contains all the information necessary for a fax cover sheet. So how do you create a fax cover letter using the PDF.Live online fax tool?

1. Enter the PDF.Live Studio and select the Fax option.

2. Upload your PDF to fax.

Either drag and drop your PDF from your computer into the tool or click the From PDF.Live tab to find a PDF you’ve already uploaded that you want to fax. 

3. Enter your recipient’s information. Check Add Free Custom Cover Letter.

On the left side of the online fax tool, you’ll see two tabs: PDF File and Cover Page. When entering your recipient’s information, PDF.Live has an option to add a free custom cover letter to your PDF. This customer cover letter serves as a fax cover sheet and will contain all the relevant information. 

4. Review your fax cover letter.

Cover Letter Format for Fax

The fax cover letter generated by PDF.Live is generally what a fax cover letter should look like and contain. Your fax cover letter will include:

• The recipient’s phone number
• The sender (your) phone number
• The recipient’s name
• The sender’s name
• The fax document “subject” (think of this as an email subject line!)
• A message to the sender

When you click Send, PDF.Live will enclose this fax cover letter before your faxed document. This makes it easier for the recipient to find out who sent the document and why to get it processed faster. When faxing a document through PDF.Live, no physical versions are necessary – you can fax entirely through your web browser. Clicking Send will immediately send your fax out. It may take a couple of minutes, so refer to our Faxing PDF guide to learn more about how it works.

What to Write on a Fax Cover Sheet

You don’t have to write a personal message on the fax cover sheet, but if you have special requests or instructions, this is where you do it. For example, you might write: “Please email me at myname@email.com to confirm that you received all 11 pages of my fax.”

This space could also be where you put privacy requests, as in: “This fax contains private information that is intended only for the recipient named on this cover sheet.” 

You might also include instructions on why you are sending the fax, if it isn’t obvious: “Hey, Smitty. I picked up this sale brochure from a property for sale near you, and I thought it might be what you’re looking for. Give me a call and we can take a look together!” 

There’s really no need to write a long letter; keep the messages short and to the point.

Printable Fax Cover Letter Form / Template (Free Download)

If you don’t want to make a fax cover letter through PDF.Live, you can use the cover letter provided in the above image as a screenshot. You can also search “Fax cover sheet templates” to find fax cover letter examples. You’ll just need to edit to add your personal information. For example, here is a fax cover sheet template from Microsoft. 

PDF.Live includes a free fax cover sheet within our online faxing tool, but if you prefer to create your own, here is a free PDF template that includes the basics for sending a fax.

Download a free blank fax cover sheet template from PDF.Live. 

If you’re having trouble adding a cover page to the PDF you want to fax, consider using PDF.Live’s Merge Tool to add an extra page or pages to the beginning of your PDF.

The post How to Write a Fax Cover Sheet appeared first on pdf.live.

How do you permanently rotate PDF pages? If you need to change the orientation of one page in a PDF, several pages, or an entire PDF file you can do that easily with this online tool. Our tutorial shows you how to rotate and save PDF documents that way.

Rotating pages on a PDF is useful if you have single or multiple pages on a document that need to be displayed in a different orientation. Your PDF may be mostly in portrait, for example, and you need a few pages to be displayed horizontally in landscape. You can rotate one or multiple pages of your choice using the online PDF.Live editor. This editor functions entirely in your browser — no additional downloads are required.

Rotating PDF Pages with PDF.Live

First, drag and drop your PDF into the PDF.Live editor to upload it and select Edit PDF and Continue to start editing.

Once your PDF is displayed in the editor, select the Manage pages icon on the left side of the PDF.Live editor. This will show the pages of your PDF in thumbnail view, which is a condensed version that’s easier for editing pages. 

From here, you can click on a page within your PDF that you want to rotate. At the top of the page manager, you’ll see a few different buttons for managing your pages. We want the Rotate button. With the page you want to rotate selected, click the rotate button. 

You’ll see the rotation reflected in the thumbnail view. Once you’re happy with how the page is oriented, select Confirm to have your changes applied in the editor view. 

You can also quickly rotate a selected page by clicking the two circular arrow icons with a page selected. 

After you’ve rotated all the pages you need, you’ll need to Confirm your changes with the page manager and then download a new version of the PDF from the editor to see your changes reflected. This new version will contain the rotations and any other changes you’ve made.

Other PDF readers, such as Apple’s Preview app, will allow you to rotate pages and make other edits. Readers are separate applications that are downloaded on your computer, however, and won’t allow you to make changes in your web browser.

How do you rotate all pages in a PDF? From the PDF.Live Studio, select Manage pages in the upper left, and from the thumbnail view, select each page and rotate it.

The post How to Rotate PDF Pages appeared first on pdf.live.

PDFs are among the best file formats to share information online. They’re easy to compress and won’t lose formatting settings between devices. In fact, PDFs can be a great way to share presentations between devices as they can be converted to and from PPT files. 

There is one big differentiation, or limitation, between using a PDF versus a PowerPoint, Google, or similar presentation file: PDFs are flat files that don’t easily accommodate animations. So, if you want to dazzle your audience with animated text, GIFs or videos, you’ll be better off converting your PDF into a PPT to add the animations.

So how do you turn a PDF into a slideshow? PDF.Live offers PDF to PowerPoint conversion entirely online.  

Convert PDF to PowerPoint

1. Go to the PDF.Live Studio and select the Convert to PPT option.

Either drag and drop your file into the converter or select the file wherever it’s located on your desktop or device. You can also select a PDF that you’ve already uploaded to the PDF.Live Studio.

2. Click Convert to PowerPoint.

Once your PDF is converted to a PPT, select Download File.

3. Open your converted PDF on the slideshow editor of your choice. 

From here, you can open your converted PDF on Microsoft Powerpoint, Google Slides, or another presentation program to test if your PDF was converted properly. Simply open the program and select the PPT file you downloaded from PDF.Live. If you’re using Google Slides, you will need to upload the downloaded PPT to your Google Drive account. 

From here, you can make further edits to it as you would any other PowerPoint. You can also test presenting the new slideshow to see how it will look when on the big screen. PDF.Live also offers a PPT to PDF converter, if you want to eventually turn your presentation back into a PDF. You can, for example, convert a PDF to a slideshow, make edits, and then convert it back into a PDF! PDF.Live has a lot of powerful tools you can utilize to make it as easy as possible to work with PDFs. 

The post How to Turn a PDF Into a Slideshow appeared first on pdf.live.

How to Minimize PDF File Sizes

There are a few ways that you can make PDFs smaller. Whether you’re sending documents over the web, storing them on your computer, or trying to print them, you want your PDFs to take up as little space on your computer as possible. This is because it can be a little more difficult to work with documents that have larger file sizes. Large documents take longer to open, can’t be shared via email due to data limits, and have a higher storage burden on your computer. 

In this article, we’ll go through some of the methods you can use to shrink the size of your PDF. These methods can be performed online through either PDF.Live or on your own as you manage the document. 

Using PDFLive to Change PDF File Sizes

Making your PDF smaller through PDF.Live is performed with the online PDF compression tool. You can learn more about how this tool is used in our article on reducing the size of a PDF. This tool will look through all the data that’s contained within your PDF file and trim the fat by eliminating data that’s not currently being used. 

The benefits of using the PDF.Live compression tool is that you don’t have to use a PDF or document editor to significantly alter your PDF. You can even select the level of compression!

 Other methods may involve changing the document by eliminating content that’s in your PDF. The compression tool will preserve all existing content while still making your PDF smaller. 

Other Ways for Shrinking PDF File Sizes 

If the PDF.Live compressor hasn’t shrunk your PDF enough, there are a few other methods available for making PDFs smaller. 

1. Split the PDF

PDFs can sometimes be hundreds of pages long — but does yours really need to be? Consider splitting a larger PDF into multiple smaller PDFs so it’s easier to send and receive essential portions of the document to other people. To do this, check out our post on splitting a page or pages from a PDF using the PDF.Live editor. 

2. Remove Images

Oftentimes, high quality images lead to PDFs having extremely large file sizes. This is because images contain a lot more data when compared to text. If a picture isn’t essential to your document, it’s sometimes best to remove it entirely. Alternatively, you can try to find a lower-quality version of a picture to put in your PDF. 

3. Reduce Page Size

In the page setup of your original document editor (e.g. Microsoft Word, Google Docs), you may have an option to change the paper size of your PDF. A standard document is 8.5” x 11”, but your PDF may not need to be that large. Explore the Paper size options in your Page setup to make your PDF smaller. However, take note that your PDF may not properly print out on a standard printer.  

4. Do Not Scan All PDFs

Scanning PDFs from a printed, physical version of your document may be convenient, but it actually leads to a PDF having a much larger file size. This is because a scanned PDF is considered an image instead of a bunch of text by your computer. As we mentioned earlier, pictures contain a lot more data than raw text, so the file size will consequently be much larger. When possible, instead of scanning PDFs, try to find the original digital version of the document and save it as a PDF. 

The post How to Make PDFs Smaller appeared first on pdf.live.

Capturing images online is easy with the snipping tool. There are many images, webpages, and portions of web pages that you can’t right-click and save the same way that you can an image. This is where the snipping tool comes into play. If you want to take a snapshot of a portion of a webpage, for example, the snipping tool allows you to designate exactly what you want a screenshot of.

But once you’ve taken your screenshots, how do you share them with others? What if you want to share a bunch of screenshots? 

This article will be all about converting a screenshot to a PDF. We’ll achieve this by saving our screenshots and then using our PDF converter tool that allows you to convert images to PDFs. 

Using Windows’ Snipping Tool

If you’re on a Windows machine, the snipping tool is already available to you. Simply type Snipping into the Windows search bar and you’ll see the icon of a pair of scissors. 

This tool allows you to cut out certain portions of anything that’s currently displayed on your monitor. By selecting New, you’ll see that your screen will be slightly gray. You can then use your cursor to draw a box over whatever you want to screenshot. 

After you’ve done this, you’ll see a preview of the screenshot you’ve taken. You can always retake a screenshot with New, or select Mode if you want a screenshot shaped differently from a box. 

From here, you can copy the screenshot you’ve taken by selecting the icon with two pages on top of one another. This is useful if you want to paste it somewhere else. You can also save the image by selecting File > Save As. 

Converting a screenshot to a PDF starts from here, so make sure you’re familiar with the snipping tool before continuing. 

Using Mac’s Screenshot Tool

Apple’s Mac laptops allow you to take screenshots using keystrokes. Here are three keystrokes you can use to take screenshots. 

1. Pressing Command + Shift + 3 together will take a screenshot of your entire screen (and all screens, if you have more than one connected screen).

2. Pressing Command + Shift + 4 will allow you to click and drag to draw a box around what you want to screenshot.

3. Pressing Command + Shift + 5 brings up a cropping screen that allows you to drag, move, and adjust the size of the clipped portion of the screen.

How to Combine Screenshots Into One PDF

If you want to combine screenshots into a single file, you’ll need to convert them from image files to PDF formats. PDF.Live offers a JPEG to PDF converter that’s available entirely online for you to use (no additional downloads!). To make a screenshot into a PDF, we’ll be using this tool. 

1. Change Screenshot to JPEG

After you’ve taken your screenshot with the Snipping tool, select File and Save as. When saving your image, you’ll see File Name, where you can type a name for your screenshot. Under this, you’ll see Save as type listed. You need to select this and then select JPEG. 

Take note of where you save your screenshot, as you’ll need to access this location later on. 

2. Convert JPG to PDF

Open the PDF.Live convert to PDF from JPG tool. This converter operates in your web browser. You can either drag and drop your screenshot into the tool from your file explorer or find it on your PC by selecting Select JPG to Convert.

3. Click Convert to PDF.

Upon doing this, you’ll see a preview of your screenshot in PDF form. You can then download it or directly print it if you want a physical version of the screenshot. 

PDF.Live welcomes you to sign up for a free trial. If you need more, we offer very low-price subscriptions, which you may cancel at any time. For pricing, select PDF.Live Unlimited at the top of the page.

The post Convert Screenshots to PDFs appeared first on pdf.live.

How to Save, Export and Convert Excel Spreadsheets as PDFs 

The spreadsheet editing software Microsoft Excel is one of the most effective tools for organizing, analyzing and interpreting large amounts of data. However, it’s not always the ideal choice for sharing data, especially if the person you’re sharing it with isn’t adept at spreadsheets. Sending an XLSX or XLS file directly would require them to open that file in Excel. In other cases, you may not want to share all the work behind the Excel pivot tables or graphs and, instead, show the final analyses. Yes, you could lock your spreadsheets to prevent others from making changes, but if you simply want to share a snapshot of a part of a spreadsheet, for a proposal or presentation, for example, we’ll cover that here. Exporting your Excel file as a PDF ensures that your data report is easy to interpret by anyone who receives it. 

How to Save Excel as a PDF

You can save your Excel files as PDFs directly from Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, or Apple Numbers. 

1. Select File and Save as. 
2. Select Save as type and then PDF. 
3. Review the preview file to ensure your Excel document is exporting correctly. 
4. Select Save. 

Excel’s print to PDF will also allow you to save a spreadsheet as a PDF. Select Print and from the drop-down box that says PDF, select Save As PDF. Both methods will export your Excel document as a PDF. You can share it much easier across the web. 

Take note that your spreadsheet data may look a bit empty on the PDF if you haven’t formatted your Excel document. For example, consider adding a title to your document by editing the header and footer of your document. 

Convert Excel Sheets to PDFs Online

If you don’t have access to Microsoft Excel or a similar spreadsheet editing program, there are options available to you. Consider using PDF.Live’s Excel to PDF converter to convert your spreadsheets to PDFs online. PDF.Live’s converter is easy to use and doesn’t require additional programs to operate.

Simply drag and drop your XLS or XLSX file into the converter and click Convert Excel to PDF. Follow the prompts to download your PDF. Use the PDF editing tool to annotate your PDF, if needed.

How to Convert PDF to a Spreadsheet 

What about the other way around: Saving a PDF as an Excel file? 

This is a bit more complicated as you won’t be able to open PDFs using Excel. Excel can only handle XLS or files that are intended for spreadsheets. However, if you’re sent a PDF that contains data in table format, and you want to extract the data to use in a spreadsheet program like Excel, you may need a PDF-to-Excel converter. 

How do you do this? 

For extracting data from a PDF to Excel, you’ll need a specific file converter that can turn PDFs into Excel documents. 

Just like with the above converter, simply drag and drop your PDF into the converter and click Convert PDF to Excel. The better quality the data is in the PDF, the easier the conversion will be. For example, data in a table will be easier to convert than bulleted lists or paragraphs of text. 

Download your converted PDF to XLS file to complete the process. Double click to open it with Excel. If you receive this message, it could be that Microsoft Excel has found some formatting issues, which is not unexpected. Remember, spreadsheets are designed to do mathematical calculations, so if they cannot recognize characters, they cannot do math.

Click Yes to allow Excel to do its thing and clean up the converted information. (This is why it is important to keep your software programs like Microsoft Office updated; the more recent the version, the better it will fix errors.)  

Below you can see the results. PDF.Live did a good job of recognizing the data in the PDF and converting it to an Excel sheet. Excel took it a step further by formatting the text and numerals. 

How to Insert a PDF Into Excel

Sometimes, the contents of a PDF is needed in a spreadsheet but doesn’t quite match the “cell” format that Excel demands. Fortunately, you can actually embed PDFs in spreadsheets as objects. An example of this use case might be for end-of-month reporting, when you want to include a PDF document in an Excel workbook for explanations or footnotes. 

To do this, open a spreadsheet in Excel and select Insert Object. This capability will range depending on which spreadsheet editor you use. For example, some versions of Excel require you to select Insert > Text > Object. 

However, once you’ve done this, you’ll have the option to create an object from a file. You can then select a PDF file. 

If your version of Excel doesn’t allow you to insert objects, you can insert your PDF as a picture. Keep in mind that this picture will need to be a JPG or PNG file — it will not accept a PDF. Keep in mind that when inserting PDFs into Excel, only the first page will be inserted. If you need to insert multiple PDFs, you’ll need to extract pages or separate the PDF’s pages.

If you convert your PDF to one of these formats, or just take a screenshot of it and save it as a picture, you can then insert it in your spreadsheet. Using the Snipping tool is an especially effective way to do this, as you’ll be able to insert specific elements of your PDF in a spreadsheet. 

Miscellaneous Excel and PDF Functions

Attach a PDF to Excel

To link a PDF to Excel, save it in a cloud drive, such as One Drive or Google Drive, copy the web address of the file and paste it into a cell on the spreadsheet:

• From Google Drive or One Drive, locate your PDF (or any file), right click and select Share.
• In your spreadsheet, navigate to the cell that has content you want to attach the PDF to, select Insert >> Hyperlink and paste the link in the Address field. 
• Click the link to test it. It should open the PDF within your browser.

Convert Excel to PDF Landscape

If you need landscape orientation but your page layout defaulted to portrait, you’ll need to change the page layout in Excel. And this takes a little bit of know-how in Excel. Before converting your Excel into a PDF, select Page Setup >> Orientation >> Landscape. 

Then, go to Print and, before selecting PDF, adjust your margins and scale to fit the page width as needed. For step-by-step tutorials, visit Microsoft’s support article on formatting spreadsheets for printing. 

The post How to Save or Export a PDF to Excel appeared first on pdf.live.

This tutorial explains how to add pages to a PDF. We cover three ways to do this, first using our online tool PDF.Live, then using a Windows-based PC, followed by using an Apple computer. 

Why would you need to add a page to a PDF? Perhaps you want to add pages from one PDF to another, so you don’t have to send a bunch of different PDFs over the internet. An example is if you are applying for a job, and you want to merge your resume and application into a single PDF document. Or maybe you want to add blank pages to separate sections of a larger document. If you have the original file format (Microsoft Word or PowerPoint, for example), you can add and remove pages easily and then export the file as a single PDF. If you don’t have the original .doc, .docx or .ppt, it’s still quite easy to do using a PDF editor.

We’ll show you three ways to merge and add pages to PDF files: Using (1) PDF.Live, (2) Adobe Acrobat on Windows, and (3) Preview on Apple computers.

Using PDF.Live to Add Pages to a PDF

In this section, we cover how to add pages from one PDF to another using the Merge feature on PDF.Live.

If you want to add specific pages from one PDF to another, and you need to extract them, we have an article on extracting pages from a PDF that will help you do this.

Once you have your PDFs, head over to the PDF.Live studio and select the Merge option. PDF.Live’s merge tool does not require any downloads and functions entirely in your web browser.

Drag and drop the PDFs that you want to merge into the tool. You can either upload your documents from your computer or select them if they’re already stored within your PDF.Live account. You can also select more than two PDFs if you have additional pages you’d like to add.

Note that the number of files that you’re merging and the final page count of the document will be listed at the top of the merge tool. 

Once you’re done, select Complete PDF. You will then be able to download or print your merged document!

Once this is done, if you are a PDF.Live subscriber, you can click the Edit PDF button to rearrange the PDF’s pages in the order you need them to be. Simply download the merged document and then drag and drop it in the editor. 

Open the PDF.Live editor and select Manage pages. You will see small thumbnail previews of each page in your PDF.

You can click and drag the pages to rearrange them in any order you’d like! Note: This is a premium feature. In the PDF editor, you can also click the 3 dots … next to a page to further manipulate the pages in your PDF.

One of these options is Insert a page. You can use this to directly add additional pages to a PDF document. If you want to insert a blank page, select Blank and then specify which page you want the blank page to be in your PDF. You can also upload a page from a separate PDF to be inserted into this PDF. 

Adding Pages to a PDF in Windows

The current version of Windows does not come with a default application to merge PDFs. You will have to use an online tool like PDF.Live, a tool to merge PDFs from the Microsoft App Store, or a PDF editor such as Adobe Acrobat. Here’s how Adobe Acrobat merges PDFs: Open your PDF in Adobe Acrobat.

Find the Combine Files tool in the Tools menu.

Click Add Files and drag and drop the files you want to merge into the window.

Then, you can rearrange your pages as you see fit. Then click Combine.

You can also insert new blank pages by selecting Organize Pages and Insert on the right-hand side of the program.

Note: Adobe Acrobat requires a paid subscription to perform these actions. 

Adding Pages to a PDF in Apple Preview

Apple’s Mac computers have a PDF reader and editor installed in their systems by default called Preview. You can add new blank pages and merge documents with this program.

Open one document by double-clicking (Apple defaults to Preview). In the lower-left corner, you’ll see a + sign where you can insert another PDF file, insert a blank page, or import a page from an iPad or iPhone. For our purposes, we’re going to select another PDF on our desktop called “Myresume” and insert it into the job application.

Select the second document that you want to add. 

Use the thumbnail view on the left to click and drag to rearrange the pages.

Troubleshooting: Unable to Add Pages

If you are unable to use any of the above methods to add pages to a PDF, it’s likely that the originator of the PDF file has locked it. If a PDF has been locked or protected, it’s likely that you won’t be able to make changes to it. These are called owner-level permissions, and they are used when a content creator wants to copyright or protect their content from being altered without permission. If you know the originator of the document, you may be able to reach out and ask for the password to remove the protections. Otherwise, you won’t be able to alter someone else’s work.

What About Removing or Deleting Pages?

You might run into the same issues if you’re trying to remove pages from a protected PDF. For our tutorial on extracting, deleting or removing pages from a PDF, see How to Delete Part or All of a PDF.

ID 325736289 | Rudzhan Nagiev | Dreamstime.com

The post Add a Page to a PDF: Step-by-Step Guide appeared first on pdf.live.

PowerPoint files are generally used for presentations, and they are built in the program Microsoft PowerPoint. In this post, we explain how you can convert PPT files to PDF, how you can add PDFs to PPT, and how you can convert PDFs into PPT.

What is a PowerPoint?

Some people use the branded term “PowerPoint” to refer to any presentation, kind of like the way all tissues became “Kleenex” decades ago. Still, PowerPoint is a branded term that, technically, refers to presentations that are created by the Microsoft PowerPoint program. However, the term is also used to refer to presentations created in other programs like Google Slides, Apple Keynote, Canva and others. 

They can be spotted by the .PPT or .PPTX file extension at the end of the file name. PowerPoints are unique in that they’re not entirely text-based like most documents. PowerPoints commonly have graphics, pictures, graphs, and other visual elements, including animations. 

What Are PowerPoints Used For?

Although PowerPoints are an incredibly useful and unique tool for presentations, they’re not the easiest to send and receive. Depending on the operating system or version of the program that’s used to open and view the .PPT file, the presentation may look dramatically different from what the original creator intended. Also, original PPT files can be massive because they may include photos, GIFs, videos, and other design features that take a lot of memory.

If you’re planning to share a PowerPoint and are unsure if recipients are using the same version or program, consider converting your PowerPoint to a PDF. The PDF is one of the best file formats for sending information through the web, as they will always appear with the same formatting settings across any device or program. PDFs can easily be opened with a web browser, so anyone can view the PowerPoint as the original creator intended it. 

In this guide, we’ll be answering some common questions about PowerPoints and PDFs, so you can work with .PPT files like a pro. 

Answers to FAQs about PPT and PDF Files

How to insert or add a PDF into a PowerPoint? 

PDFs can be put into a PowerPoint, but the process can be tricky. You can insert a single-page PDF into a PowerPoint and use it as an image on a slide. Alternatively, you can convert a multi-page PDF into an editable PowerPoint, using a PDF to PPT converter. Some versions of Microsoft PowerPoint will allow you to embed PDFs as objects, but the process can be glitchy, depending on the version of PowerPoint that you are running. To troubleshoot the PDF-PowerPoint insertion process, see this article on Microsoft’s support site. 

PowerPoint does accept many common image formats (JPG, GIF, PNG to name a few) if you’d like to place a graphic in your presentation that was originally in a PDF. Consider taking a screenshot or using the snipping tool on your computer to grab an image from the PDF. You can then copy and paste the image directly into your presentation. 

How do you save a PowerPoint as a PDF? 

Most versions of PowerPoint have a function that allows you to save a PowerPoint as a PDF. To do this, click File and then Print. In your Destination tab, select Save as PDF. 

Alternatively, select File and then Download if you’re using a cloud-based PDF editor such as Google Slides. You can then download your presentation directly as a PDF. 

Finally, you can use PDF.Live’s PPT to PDF converter to quickly convert any PPT to a PDF without having to open a PowerPoint editing software. 

How do you open a PDF in PowerPoint? 

PowerPoint editing software will only allow you to edit files with .ppt extensions. Trying to open a PDF in PowerPoint will not convert it into a PPT. Fortunately, it’s possible to convert your PDF on your own with PDF.Live’s PDF to PPT converter feature in the PDF.Live studio. 

Simply drag and drop the document you want converted to a PowerPoint into the converter and your PDF will be converted to a .ppt file. You can also select a PDF that you’ve already uploaded or edited with the PDF.Live editor under the From PDF.Live tab. 

Once you’ve found the document you want to convert to a PowerPoint, click Continue. 

Select Convert to PowerPoint. 

This presentation can then be downloaded opened in Microsoft PowerPoint. 

How do you embed a PDF in a PPT? 

PowerPoints allow you to insert links in text and to pictures and objects, similar to the way web pages may have hyperlinks that navigate you to another webpage like this. This means that you can embed a link to a PDF within a PowerPoint presentation. 

Use a cloud-based web storage site like Google Drive to do this. Upload a PowerPoint to Google Drive and then copy its URL (right click >> Share >> Copy Link). Highlight a piece of text or image that you want to connect the PDF to. Right click it and select Link. You will then be able to insert a link that will navigate a user to a specific web page when clicked. 

How do you save a PPT as a PDF with notes?

If you’re using a PowerPoint software and included important notes in your presentation, you may want to include them in the PDF version of your PowerPoint. In the process we described above, when you save a PPT as a PDF, there’s an extra step that you can take to ensure that the PDF version of your PPT still has the notes you made. 

When selecting File and Print in your PowerPoint app, look for options called Show Details and/or Notes. This will differ slightly depending on what presentation editing software you use. For example, if you use Google Slides, when you enter the Print Preview of your presentation, you’ll see a dropdown menu to print your PDF with notes attached. 

Note that if you select this option, your PDF’s format may be skewed or changed dramatically. 

The post How PowerPoint Works With PDFs appeared first on pdf.live.