Tips for Creating & Editing PDFs using Word

By Evan Campbell
Published on December 8, 2020 9:48 am MT
Updated on August 10, 2023 12:11 pm MT
Posted in General CNSIT, Knowledge Base, Tips and Tricks

This post is marked as Deprecated and therefore contains outdated information.

With Adobe’s continually changing licensing demands CNSIT has started to explore alternative methods for creating and editing PDF files.  Fortunately, we have found Word is a good alternative that is accessible by everyone on campus.  This article will give you tips on how to create and edit PDFs in Word.  If this article doesn’t cover an issue you’re having please submit a ticket https://cnsit.colostate.edu/kb and we can assist with the issue as well as update this article.

  • If you don’t need to edit a PDF that has been sent to you, we recommend using Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the PDF.

  • When creating a PDF document in Word you will want to insert all tables, charts, and images using the insert tab.  You can use the draw your own table function to create custom tables in which you can insert data, images, charts, and graphs.  You will want to add a little extra space between the title of the table and the table itself as well as below the table if you have more content below it.

  • PDFs in Word do not handle graphics on the borders of pages well so avoid those for now.  This issue might be patched out with an update in the future.

Back to top of page