Some programs have built-in support for creating PDFs. (To add insult to injury, it’s not easy to figure out how to buy that Acrobat subscription – here are tips about how to buy Acrobat.)

Microsoft will give you five licenses for all the Microsoft Office programs for $8/month, but Adobe refuses to budge and charges $19.99/month to install Acrobat on two computers. Adobe hasn’t gotten the memo about a new era of lower prices for software license subscriptions. The problem is that Acrobat is expensive. Or maybe they’re quite nice, like the long-time stalwart Foxit, which is just fine but has the weakness of not being Acrobat – and at some point that becomes an issue. They might be poorly designed, or aging badly, or they’re produced by companies that aren’t making any money, or they’re supported by adware that mucks up your computer. There are some perfectly adequate alternatives to Acrobat but they tend to have problems. It has features that extend far beyond the simple creation of a PDF file it integrates with Office programs and Outlook and line-of-business programs will only interact with Acrobat to provide PDF support, in much the same way that Quickbooks is the only financial program supported by most LOB apps. In reality, Adobe Acrobat is an unavoidable expense for most offices. The PDF standard is open and theoretically any company can produce a program that creates files in PDF format. Adobe successfully made the PDF format a global standard, in part by the clever trick of widely distributing the free Adobe Reader, which can display PDFs but not create them. Scanning documents to PDF is a daily requirement in most offices. It’s worked for me each time I’ve tested but your mileage may vary. It requires a bit of luck to avoid being one of the people who complain that the app doesn’t work.It doesn’t work with other brands of scanners. The app works with any HP scanner installed with up to date HP drivers.

HP Scan and Capture is a full-screen modern app for Windows 8.1 only.HP Scan and Capture reaches out to your HP scanner and creates either JPGs or multi-page PDFs.It may help some of you avoid paying Adobe’s expensive subscription rate for Adobe Acrobat. HP Scan and Capture is a free app for Windows 8.1 that can create PDFs from scanned documents – if your computer and scanner meet the requirements.

Hp scan and capture windows 7