Recently a friend asked a writing group why she couldn't save Word files as PDFs. "I keep seeing this thing requiring me to sign up for Adobe Acrobat and I can only do one a month." Nobody had an answer. I offered to go look at her computer, but "Thanks. No. My daughter will take care of it." Well, whatever. I keep forgetting to ask. 

Today my husband ran into the same problem with PowerPoint 2013. I had a hunch he had snuck Adobe Reader onto his system. (True.) I quickly discovered that if you have Adobe anything on your system, the first Export option in any Office program is to "Create Adobe PDF." Well, folks, those of us who cut our 'puter teeth a couple of decades ago had only one PDF choice: Adobe  Acrobat. When Adobe began switching all their software to a subscription model, many of us found other fine FREE alternatives like Foxit, my go-to PDF reader. 

But if you are still okay if you do have Acrobat Reader on your system. Just go down one line on the Export menu and choose "Create PDF/XPS." Problem solved. Or, select Save As and add .pdf as your file extension. 

One more tip: If you use a font besides the basic Calibri, Georgia, Times New Roman, or Arial, select Save As and scout around for the "embed fonts" option. That way your document will look the same on all systems. 

Now, Hubs is out running errands. Maybe I'll get that evil Adobe app off his system and replace it with Foxit. I'll also add Ashampoo PDF Free for re-ordering or deleting pages, etc. Real PDF Reader Free is helpful for digital signing. Who needs Adobe? Not me!