UGA Graduate School: Theses & Dissertations Guidelines

The Graduate School > Current Students > Academics > Theses and Dissertations > Converting to PDF

Converting to PDF

Choosing a PDF Conversion Program

The two packages we work with the most are Adobe Acrobat and GhostScript/GhostView. You may use either and/or both. Here are some of the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Commonly Used PDF-Generator Packages

Adobe Acrobat	Pro Single-step process for converting a single file to PDF Can use drag-and-drop to combine multiple PDFs Con Cost: ~$250 on the street; ~$100 at UGA bookstore (with educational discount). If you would rather not pay, various campus locations have computers with Acrobat installed [See List].
PDF995/ PDFedit995	Pro Single-step process for converting a single file to PDF Creating a single PDF file from multiple wordprocessor files is much easier than with GhostScript/GhostView [see Instructions]. Cost: Free + advertising! You can download it and install it on your own computer. Con Creating a single PDF file from multiple wordprocessor files can be a little confusing at first. Advertising appears in your web browser when you use this software (nothing offensive).
GhostScript/ GhostView	Pro Cost: Free! You can download it and install it on your own computer. Con Creating even a single PDF file is a multi-step process. No graphical user interface for converting multiple files into a single PDF file. This combining/converting can be done, but it requires working with DOS (which scares some people). Don't use this software if you use foreign-language fonts. This software may not do a good job of handling mathematical/statistical/etc. symbols. It may also not do a good job of handling "fancy"/atypical fonts. If you have any doubts about your fonts or symbols, be sure to do a test run well before the deadline.

Creating Single or Multiple Files

You can store/manage your file however you want. The graduate school requires only that you submit a single PDF file; how you produce that PDF–from a single or from multiple wordprocessor files–is completely up to you.

Points to Consider

Single File

Easier to keep track of your files and different versions
Easier to convert to PDF

If your file is very large, saving, opening, copying, etc. can become very slow.
The larger your file, the greater your loss if a small error/flaw in any part of it corrupts the whole thing.

Multiple Files

Your individual small files will open relatively quickly.
If any one file becomes corrupted, you don't loose your whole document.

File management becomes more complicated: you need to keep track of more files and versions of those different files. It becomes easier to accidentally mix and match old and new files. Think carefully about how you are going to name and store your different files and different versions of those files.
It takes a little more work to convert multiple files to a single PDF.

Combining Acrobat files

The easiest way to combine Acrobat files, such as the front-matter template and the body of your thesis or dissertation, is the Create PDF From Multiple Files function in Acrobat 6, 7, and 8. To do this go to File, Create PDF, From Multiple Files in the top menu bar in Acrobat. As you can see in the picture below, click the Browse button to locate your files and add them to the window on the right side. The files will import in alphabetrical order so you may need to use the Move Up and Move Down buttons on the left under Arrange Files in order to have them combined in the correct order. When you have the files arranged in the desired order, click the OK button and all your files will be combined into one document. Please be sure you remember to save your newly combined document.

Another way to combine PDF files is to use the method described below. This method is also useful if you wish to insert pages into a specific place in a PDF document. Open the pdf file of the first part of the final document, the abstract for example. In Acrobat 4 or 5 go to Document, Insert Pages and choose the next part, in our example front matter, the dialogue box to the right will appear. In Acrobat 6 go to Document, Pages, Insert. In Acrobat 7 go to Document, Insert Pages and choose the next part. Next, choose Location: After and Page: Last Page as shown in the illustration. Continue this process until you have the entire document put together. Finally do Save As using the naming convention: (lastname_firstname_middlename_yearmonth_degree) and you will have a complete document ready for submission.

Creating Working Web Links in a PDF File

Open your converted file in Acrobat.
In Acrobat 6,7, or 8 go to Advanced, Link, Create from URLs in Document.
You will be prompted with a dialogue box to generate web links, select All and click OK. Save your document to preserve the newly created web links.
In Acrobat 5 go to Tools, Locate Web Addresses, Create web links from URLs in text.
You will be prompted with a dialogue box to generate web links, select All and click OK. Save your document to preserve the newly created web links.
In Acrobat 4 go to Tools, Web Links, Create.
You be prompted with a dialogue box to generate web links, select All and click OK. Save your document to preserve the newly created web links.
To view the links, click the "Hand Tool."

Important Notes About Creating Web Links in PDF Files

In your Word documents, be sure to include http:// before all links. This will ensure the links function in the PDF file.
Be sure to have consistency of the hyperlink properties in your Word document. Make sure all hyperlinks are either turned ON or OFF so that after the conversion, there will be a consistent look for the PDF web links.
Also in Word documents do not include a period immediately after the links, doing so can prevent them from converting in PDF.

How Do I Decrease My File Size?

If you have pages that you scanned and inserted into your PDF file, the file may be very large. The typical file size for a text only 250 page paper is between 500K and 1 Megabyte. A needlessly large file will cause difficulties for you uploading and for those who may access it from the library. Acrobat has a utility to reduce file sizes built in. With your document open in Acrobat 6 go the File menu item and choose Reduce File Size (choose "Compatible with Acrobat 5.0 or later"). This operation will normally substantially reduce the file size without any loss of image resolution. One student handed in a thesis with 10 scanned pages included which was 125 megabytes. The scanned pages accounted for 124 megabytes of the file size! We performed the Reduce File Size operation on the document and reduced it down to 6 megabytes without any loss of image resolution.