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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   768 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for April 4, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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New Microsoft insanity.

I made a powerpoint presentation1, and went to save it. There were the normal options: Save, Save As, Export, Share, and one new one: Save as PDF.

Great, I thought. I want to save it as a PDF, so I will select the "Save as PDF" option. What a fool I was. Microsoft hadn't given me a convenient option to Save as PDF. It had embedded an ad for Adobe Acrobat Reader Pro's integration with their software, and offered me one free sample per 30 days, and the wonderful opportunity to buy (or rent, I assume) their software to unlock unlimited use and access many other features!

Needless to say, I went to "Save As", selected the .pdf filetype from the dropdown menu, and saved it as a pdf.

1 Not really, but Powerpoint some of the best software there is for simple image editing.

I don't recall having seen this. Are you sure this wasn't something bundled from the hardware OEM?

I've seen it on both my personal computer (built from parts, so no OEM) and my work computer.

Here's a screenshot. "Create Adobe PDF" on the right and "Save as Adobe PDF" on the left are advertisements, while "Create PDF/XPS Document" is the free (gratis) version.

The “Save as Adobe PDF” is helpful because it embeds fonts and images, which the normal “Save As” .pdf option doesn’t do. You do need an active Adobe Acrobat Pro subscription to use it though.

Ah, you appear to have Acrobat Reader installed which is what adds that (as well as the Share option). Microsoft isn't really to blame here, I think. They've done nothing except make it possible for third parties to integrate into Word. They may even have been legally required to do it.

FWIW, you don't need Acrobat Reader for general PDF reading.

Could be, but I'm blaming Microsoft regardless. Those ads have no place in the Microsoft Office Suite, regardless of who did it.

I've found that "Print to PDF" is also a workable option.

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