A PDF Converter to help you create PDF documents from any application - and it's free (as in beer)

The CC PDF converter (beta) is a free (open source) application that enables you to create PDF documents from almost any application (Word, Excel, Internet Explorer and more). The CC PDF Converter also allows you to easily embed a creative commons license in your PDF file.

Following is a short (less than 3 minutes) demo:

Why You Should Publish your PDF with a Creative Commons License

Spread your message wider and faster

If you want the contents of your PDF document to remain a secret, then a creative commons license is a bad idea. This is because publishing your PDF under a Creative Commons license allows colleagues, bloggers, social media sites and even newspapers to republish your work and create new content based on It as long as they clearly state that you are the creator.

This way, your work gets spread around much faster and you retain the credit for it.

Get commercial benefits if your work becomes popular

If you want to be able to profit from your PDF content and still use the Internet’s amazing ability to spread free-content, you can publish your work under a Non-Commercial Creative Commons license.

This way, when your work becomes popular and commercial entities want to use it, they have to get your permission (and hopefully pay for it).

You can learn more about the Creative Commons at www.creativecommons.org

Source Code

Source code for the CC PDF Converter is available as a zip file here, or browse through it here.

The code is written in C++, and includes project files for Microsoft Visual Studio 6. Additional source files for libraries used to compile the source are needed from different locations; the links to those sites are detailed in the 'Building.txt' file that can be found in the archive.

CC PDF Converter uses the following open source projects:

• Redmon, a port monitor redirector (slightly patched)
• GhostScript, used to create PDF files from the print PostScript output (with a minor addition)
• libPNG and zlib, to display PNG images and to put license images into the document
• XMLite, a simple XML parser by Kyung-min Cho, slightly modified
• and SQLite, an lightweight imbedded database engine to access the local license database

The CC PDF Converter and its source code is licensed under GPL.

Help with this project

If you wish to help with this project you can send an email to yoav@cogniview.com. We could really use the help of a graphic designer right now.