There are many situations where you need to convert documents or images to PDF format. Fortunately, there are now quite a few tools and methods available to do both.
Apple MacOS Preview
The Apple Preview app has easy-to-use tools for working with PDF’s. See Apple’s article at https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202945
Adobe Acrobat DC
The College licenses Adobe Creative Suite for use on College-owned faculty and staff computers and lab computers. Adobe Acrobat DC is part of the suite and is installed on these computers. You can use Adobe Acrobat DC to convert many types of documents to PDF format. You can also use it to combine multiple PDF files together to create a single PDF.
To create PDF’s, see the Adobe web site for detailed help at https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/creating-simple-pdfs-acrobat.html
To combine files and/or PDF’s together, see this Adobe web site link: https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/merging-files-single-pdf.html
Creating a PDF on an iPhone
There are plenty of apps that can create PDF’s, including Adobe Scan and Microsoft Lens, but they aren’t always straightforward to use. For example, Adobe Scan requires that you create an Adobe Document Cloud account and store PDF’s there.
Perhaps the simplest way to take a photo and create a PDF from it is using the iPhone share option (the icon of a box with an arrow pointing up and out) to send the photo as an email attachment to your Williams Gmail account. Then, on a Windows PC or Mac computer, use GMail’s Print command with the Save As PDF option to create a PDF.
Creating a PDF on an Android Phone
There are plenty of apps that can create PDF’s on Android, including Adobe Scan and Microsoft Lens, but they aren’t always straightforward to use. Here’s one method that uses the Google Drive app: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/24/technology/personaltech/turn-your-smartphone-into-a-pocket-scanner.html
As with an iPhone, perhaps the simplest way to take a photo and create a PDF using an Android device is to attach it to an email and send it to your Williams Gmail account. Then, on a Window PC or Mac computer, use GMail’s Print command with the Save As PDF option.
General PDF Notes
The College doesn’t have a license for Adobe Sign, so do not attempt to use it to electronically sign College documents. This includes purchasing card reconciliation reports.