Creating a PDF

Easily create a portable document format (PDF) in either Windows 10 or macOS X

Windows

Important caveat: using the Microsoft Print to PDF feature of Windows creates PDFs that are not accessible, as they lack the necessary digital tags that assistive technology users rely on. Instead we recommend using the Save As feature to create PDFs. However, before creating a PDF of your document, please review the guide for creating accessible documents and follow its recommendations.

After you have fixed any accessibility problems in your document, such as missing alt text, you can create a PDF from it as follows:

  1. Open your file in the Windows application that you created it in.
  2. Choose File > Save As.
  3. The Save As dialog defaults to the application's file type, e.g., Word Document (*.docx) for MS Word. Click the option list beneath the file name and select PDF (*.pdf)
  4. Click Save.

Or, if you have Adobe Acrobat installed, you may have an easier option: File  > Save As PDF, though you should still review your document for accessibility, referring to the creating accessible documents guide before saving it as a PDF.


macOS

Before creating a PDF of your document, please review the guide for creating accessible documents and follow its recommendations. 

After you have fixed any accessibility problems in your document, see Apple's user guide Save a document as a PDF on Mac.