There may come a time when you need to save or convert a Microsoft Word Doc or DOCX file to PDF format from a Mac. The advantages to saving a Word DOC as PDF are notable in that the PDF file becomes universally readable by any operating system with a PDF reader, even without the Microsoft Office suite, and preserved in it’s original formatting.
There are several different methods of saving a Word doc as a PDF, and for converting an existing Word DOC/DOCX file to PDF, both of which use the Microsoft Office Word app on the Mac to get the job done. Let’s review how to perform this action.
These tricks apply to all modern versions of Word for Mac, including Microsoft Office 2016 and 2011.
This will save any Word doc as a PDF:
This method is quick and easy and will save a new Word doc as a PDF, and it can also exchange any existing Word doc into a PDF file by using the Save As feature.
You can also quickly share a Word DOC as a PDF by going to the “Share” menu and choosing to “Send PDF”, which will allow you to email the Word DOC as a PDF file.
The freshly saved PDF from the DOC origin is now ready to use in any PDF friendly environment, whether it’s sending it along and preserving the original formatting or posting it online, or whatever else. Another significant bonus to saving or converting Word DOC files to PDF is that you can sign documents in Preview using a Mac Trackpad or apply a digital signature to the PDF with Preview, allowing yourself or a recipient to sign a Word document. This is really helpful for letters and contracts, or any of the other scenarios where you’d like to apply a digital signature to a Word DOC file.
Another option is to convert an existing Word DOC to PDF using the Export feature:
Using Export to convert Doc to PDF gives you a few more PDF saving options but is otherwise not too different from using the “Save As” ability. They both work in most situations, but Export is the preferred choice for converting Office files to PDF. This trick actually works in just about every Office app on the Mac too, including Powerpoint, and not just Word.
If you don’t have a Mac with Microsoft Office handy but you need to convert a DOC or DOCX file into a PDF format, you’ll have to use a roundabout method to accomplish the task instead. This isn’t too difficult however, it’s just a matter of combining two tips:
You can use the PDF saving trick to with just about any document on the Mac, which is part of what makes it such a powerful feature. If you find yourself doing this often, you’d likely want to setup the Save as PDF keyboard shortcut for the Mac, which makes quick work of this task.
