How to Create PDFs from Files

This article will tell you how to create PDFs from files with Foxit PDF Editor.

Create a PDF from a file

You can create a PDF from Office, email, a web site, or from any file that prints.

1. Launch Foxit PDF Editor, choose File > Create > From File, or choose Convert > From Files > From File.

2. In the Open dialog box, navigate through your local disk to select a local file, or click Open from ECM to select a file from ECM systems or cloud services. Then click Open to start the conversion.

3. The converted PDF file will be opened in Foxit PDF Editor automatically. Click the Save button on the Quick Access Toolbar or choose File > Save to save the PDF file.

4. Type a filename and specify a location in the pop-up Save dialog box.

Note: Depending on the type of file being converted, a progress dialog box appears and Foxit PDF Editor opens automatically.

Create PDFs from multiple files

You can easily merge files of different types into a single PDF, or you can also convert them into separate PDFs.

Convert and combine multiple files into a single PDF

1.      Choose File > Create > Combine Files, or choose Convert > Combine Files, or right-click a file you want to convert to PDF and choose Combine files in Foxit PDF Editor….

2.      The Combine Files preview pane is displayed automatically as a new “file tab” in the application window, and the Combine Files context tab appears on the ribbon. The Combine Files preview pane allows you to preview and rearrange files and pages before combining them into a PDF. Use the commands in the Combine Files context tab to add files you want to combine, delete unwanted pages, and adjust the order of files/pages to be combined.

·         Add Files: You can choose files from local drives or click Open from ECM to select a file from ECM systems or cloud services. (Tip: To add files, you can also directly drag and drop the files into the preview pane.)

·         Add Folder: Choose a folder that contains the files you want to combine.

·         Add WebPage: Input a URL, or browse and select an HTML file you want to combine. Then click Create.

·         Add PDF from Scanner: Scan documents to PDFs and add the scanned PDFs to the file list you want to combine. 

·         Add From Clipboard: Create a PDF from the clipboard and add it to the file list you want to combine. 

·         Add Open Files to: Choose currently opened PDF files to add to the file list you want to combine. The edits you made to the opened files will be included, whether or not they have been saved.

Tips: If you add a PDF portfolio, each file in the PDF portfolio will be extracted and added in the file list. By default, the files will be listed in an ascending order by the file name.

3.      (Optional) Files you added will be listed in the Combine Files preview pane. You can adjust the order of the files to be displayed in the combined PDF by the files’ name, modified time, size, or bates numbering by clicking the corresponding column name in the files list. Click the column name again to reverse the order. (Note: To order by bates numbering, all files in the dialog box should be PDFs and use the same bates numbering formatting.) For a multipage file you add, click the  icon in front of the file name to expand all pages in it, or click the  icon to collapse the pages.

Alternatively, you can adjust the order of files and pages manually as desired by clicking Move Up or Move Down command in the Combine Files context tab, or dragging and dropping a file/page to the desired location. In some situations, it is not allowed to move files/pages. For example, you cannot move multiple non-contiguous pages/files together or move a page/file into a multipage file.

4.      (Optional) You can specify a page range (for a Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, or PDF file) or choose sheets (for an Excel file) to convert to PDF. Depending on the file format, click Choose Pages or Choose Sheets in the Operation column to do the setting. And the pages or sheets that were not chosen are removed from the list in the preview pane.

5.      (Optional) If needed, click Remove to delete the selected files/pages. You can also remove the selected files/pages by pressing the Delete key.

6.      (Optional) You can double-click any file in the dialog box and choose Edit Bookmark for File and modify the bookmark title that will be one of Top Level bookmarks in the combined PDF after conversion. By default, Foxit PDF Editor combines the bookmarks of the selected files as the bookmarks of the combined PDF, with the first level of the combined bookmarks named with the original filename of each file.

7.      Click Settings and check the following options as desired and click Combine Files to start the combination. (If you want to cancel the combining, click the Close command.)

♦   Add a new table of contents page converted from bookmarks: creates a table of contents (TOC) from the bookmarks of the selected files in the beginning of the merged PDF file. The original filename of each file will be the first TOC level, each of which is followed by the bookmarks of the file. By default, the TOC includes up to 5 levels with the corresponding page numbers in the PDF. For a file without any bookmarks, only the filename will be inserted to the table of contents.

♦   Retain the logic page numbers during combination: selects it, and the combined PDF file will keep the logic page numbers in the original files.

8.      After the combination completes, a PDF file named with “Binder 1” (or “Binder 2” if you combined files once and have not closed the application since then) is created and opened automatically in Foxit PDF Editor, while the Combine Files preview pane and the Combine Files context tab disappear. Rename and save the PDF as needed.

Convert multiple files into separate PDF files

1.      Choose File > Create > From Multiple Files, or choose Convert > From Files > From Multiple Files.

2.      In the Convert Multiple Files dialog box, click Add files, and choose Add Files or Add Folder to select the files or folder you want to convert.

3.      Files will be converted in a sequence as they are ordered in the Convert Multiple Files dialog box. You can reorder the files by name, modified time, or size by clicking the corresponding column name. Alternatively, reorder the files manually as desired by clicking the Move Up/Down button, or by dragging and dropping the file in the list. Select a file and click the Remove button to delete it, if necessary.

4.      (Optional) If you need to save the converted PDF files in the same location as the original file, check the Keep original file names and locations option.

5.      Click Convert.

6.      (Optional) If you did not check the Keep original file names and locations option, the Browse For Folder dialog box will pop up. Choose the folder in which you want to save the converted PDF files, and click OK.

When you create PDFs from Microsoft Office files or 3D files in the Foxit PDF Editor application window, by dragging and dropping, or from the context menu of the files, you can specify the default conversion settings in advance. Go to Convert > From Files > Convert to PDF Settings and specify the conversion settings in the pop-up Converting to PDF dialog box.   

·         Convert Model to 3D PDF – Select this option to enable the conversion from DWG to 3D PDF. This option is not selected by default. With the option not selected, .dwg files are converted to 2D PDFs. Before converting DWG to 3D or 2D PDFs, you must have AutoCAD installed. (Pro Only)   

·         Choose a set of default conversion settings from the drop-down menu, or click Edit to modify settings. See also the instructions on “Setting Foxit PDF Editor Printer Properties”.

·         Add bookmarks to Foxit PDF Editor file – Keeps the bookmarks of Word files or converts the headings of Word files to bookmarks in the converted PDFs; In Excel/PPT, the sheet name and the slide title (or the slide page number) will be converted to bookmarks in the generated PDFs.

·         Tagged PDF – Creates a tagged PDF for accessibility. (Microsoft Office 2010 or a later version is required.)

·         Convert entire Excel workbook – Select this option to convert all sheets of the Excel file to a single PDF. If this option is deselected, only the most recent sheet that you opened will be converted.