By Sean Crider

File conversion has always been something that has plagued the typical college student since the early days of computing. Understanding what certain file types do and how they are managed is something that is very important to understand if you’re managing these files on a routine basis. It is also equally important to understand how you can manipulate these file types to your advantage. The reasoning for this is that most college students, or even someone in a business environment has had to deal with when getting a pdf document that they can’t change.
Fortunately there are plenty of options when it come to converting these files to a different format that is much more manageable. Unfortunately these options don’t always format perfectly the way you would like them to, so you might end up with the spacing in the document being off or the font being a different type.
One of the easiest ways to convert a pdf to another document type like a word document (.doc), or to an open office document (.odt) is to use an online converter. These online converters are usually free and can be pretty quick in a pinch. The drawbacks to something like an online converter are that you are limited on what formats you like to convert too. The biggest drawbacks are that online convertors come in two different flavors.
One being that they ask for your email and then the files will get converted and sent to your email. The dangerous thing about this is that these sites can save your email address and sell that information to just about anyone. This means you will really start having to weed through your email with all the spam your going to receive.
The other flavor is a direct download to your computer and if you get on a sketchy conversion web site you might be downloading virus’s along with your converted documents. There’s one solution that works really well, which is setup a junk email where you can have stuff like this sent and you won’t worry about your normal email getting clogged up.
You can also use third party programs. This option can be a good way to convert a document, especially if you do large quantitys of documents at a time. There are free ones and then there are programs you have to pay for. Word and Adobe Acrobat can shift files back and forth pretty easily. You can research online and find a third party program for free, but the down side to this is that you don’t know what virus and other programs come with some of these programs, so definitely do your research before downloading. A good option is Doxillion file convertor, it will convert pdfs into a variety of different file types.
Pdf is not the only file type out there though. There are a range of file types that can be easier or harder to convert. These files could be anything from music files, to pictures, to videos files. The list can go on and on. The important thing to remember is the two methods mentioned above will work the same way for most if not all of your converting, either through an online convertor and if there isn’t one there should be a free conversion program some where out there for that particular file type.
There are other ways to convert files all the way from just changing the file extension to using the windows command prompt and even more radical options. Most of these options require more tech savvy individuals and if done incorrectly can corrupt files and can cause even greater issues depending what you are messing with. In the end if you get caught with a file that you need converted you can find Google tutorials, get suggestions and get an idea of what you need to do.
If you would like to view this article online, then you can visit my website at http://www.seanlcrider.com/9.html. I’m a member of the computer technology department, and am currently taking senior seminar. My goal is to become a system engineer that will specializing in vitalization technology.