Colorado State University

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 still recommend using Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the PDF.  This program is free to download and install from here: https://acrobat.adobe.com/us/en/acrobat/pdf-reader.html

• 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.