Batch convert documents to PDF, PNG, TIF or JPG with DocuFreezer 1.0

Anyone who's tried Print Conductor will know how great it is for speeding up the wearisome process of printing out documents of different types in one go from your Windows PC.

Now the folks at fCoder are at it again, providing another free-for-personal-use tool to speed up batch processing. This time, however, DocuFreezer 1.0 is designed to speed up document conversion to PDF.

Archiving documents to PDF or even a non-editable image format like PNG, TIF or JPG is a great way of sharing documents with others in a format you know will ensure the original document’s formatting and layout will be preserved.

These days, outputting files to PDF is a simple affair. Many apps -- including Microsoft Office 2010 and later -- let you do this from within the program itself, while free tools like Nitro Reader ensure you can create PDFs from any application.

Of course, that's fine and dandy for individual files, or even a group of files sporting the same format. But what happens when you're handed a group of presentations, spreadsheets, text documents and even PDF files to convert into another format?

This is where DocuFreezer comes in: thanks to its simple user interface you can drag and drop (or manually select) files and even entire folders for conversion. Pick your format (which can be fine-tuned -- select PDF-A for example to ensure your document survives long-term archiving), choose your output folder and then click Start. That's it.

It's all very smooth if not particularly quick, but there's one major potential deal breaker: while DocuFreezer can process certain file types natively, including PDF, it can’t handle Office formats on its own. Instead you'll need Office 2010 or later so DocuFreezer can tap into its API for the document conversion.

If that doesn't put you off, then DocuFreezer 1.0 is available now as a free (for personal use) download for PCs running Windows XP or later. Office 2010 or later is required for Office document conversion. DocuFreezer commercial licenses can be purchased for $49.