The Best Way to Save Your Printables and Worksheets

What is the best format for opt-In freebies, printables, and worksheets?

You have just created the perfect document in Word. You used your best fonts and images and arranged them just so, the document looks fantastic on your computer and printed out beautifully.

You rocked it!

Then, when you sent the fabulous document to your friend who is on a Mac using Pages they were less impressed.

They saw all your content, but the way Pages interpreted the Word document was all messed up. It substituted your classy fonts with the lamest most boring fonts and all the images were shifted and overlapping the text.

WHAT HAPPENED!

Word, Pages, Google docs are all examples of programs that create editable files. They are dynamic and complicated and often use formats, fonts and other custom things that do not translate well between the different programs or even computers. Sometimes it works great, sometimes not so much. This also means that when someone receives the document they can edit it, they can change it, or their system can change it.

You don’t always want that, especially when it involves something to be printed or something that needs to look a certain way no matter how someone is able to access it.

The solution to this is the PDF format

PDF stands for Portable Document Format. The beauty of this format is that it is a fixed format. There are exceptions to this fixed-format feature, but that is a more advanced form of PDF creation and I won’t dig into it here.

The benefit of this fixed-format is that once you design a document to look the way you want, your viewer’s technology situation won’t be able to mess it up. You want them to experience the document the way you created it.

PDFs are fantastic for worksheets, instruction sheets, or other printable documents that you design. If you have ever opted-in to receive a downloadable “top 10” list or “worksheet” about a cool thing, you probably downloaded it as a PDF.

Now for the how-to

When you create a PDF version of a document you designed in Word, Google Docs, or Pages it traps the formatting, images, and text in the exact position and style you created. It is equivalent to taking a picture of the document. (but the text and images will remain crisp and clear)

Converting a document to the PDF format is surprisingly simple.

Save, export, and download all mean the same thing in this scenario.

In Word, you will “save” the file as a PDF

From the File menu
Choose “Save as”
Choose “Save as PDF”

In Google Docs, you will be “downloading” the file as a PDF

From the File menu
Choose “Download as”
Choose “PDF Document”

In Pages, you will “export” the file to a PDF

From the File Menu
Choose “Export to”
Choose “PDF”

This process will create a new file with .pdf at the end instead of .docx or another document format, an uneditable (un-mess-up-able file).

Every other creation program that has the capacity to create a PDF will do so in a similar fashion to one of those above.

Look for the File menu. Look for Save as, Export to or Download as.

Here is a shortlist of common programs that currently have the capacity to convert your document to PDF format.

Microsoft Word
Pages
Google Docs
Excel
Google Sheets
Numbers
PowerPoint
Google Slides
Keynote
Most Adobe products

Note: I really like creating my digital handouts and printables in PowerPoint then saving them as a PDF.

See Blog Post: The Secret Life of PowerPoint

Once you have your PDF you can send it to your people as an attachment or save it to a cloud drive and get a shareable link and they will see it as you intend.

Keep your PDF up to date and accessible in the cloud

Be aware:

If you find you need to change something on the PDF you will need to go to your original document (Pages, Word, Google docs…) and make the change there and replace the PDF.

I recommend “overwriting” the original PDF once you are finished editing it.

This technique is really helpful if have made your PDF available online by using the file’s share link from a cloud drive like Google Drive, OneDrive, or Dropbox.

When saving make sure the name of the newly edited PDF Document is the same as the PDF you wish to replace. The system will give you the option to “replace” the PDF and the share link will then remain the same.

Just click “ok” and the file will update.

This process works best when the cloud drive that holds your PDF is synced to your computer and you are using Finder (MAC) of File Explorer (PC) to map the file’s location.

See Blog Post: Where the Wild Files Are

Becoming familiar with Finder and/or File Explorer can solve many of your file organization challenges.

Digital Detangle: The Best Way to Save Printables and Worksheets

Join me in this Digital Detangle as I talk about, and demonstrate how the PDF format can work for you.

Don’t Let Your Technology Bully You

Nicole

Nicole Lux-Ritchie - Founder of Luxcentric

Nicole's mission is to help feminine professionals gain the technical
skills they need to grow their business and focus on their missions.
The focus of Luxcentric is on training practical strategies in the area of the core technologies.
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