Submitting Your Quiz Solutions: A PDF Tutorial
We require that you upload your Quiz solution files as PDFs. It's easy to create a PDF file, it's free, and it will render your solutions faithfully on our screens the same way they appeared on yours (unlike, say, a MS Word document, which may look very different from one computer to the next).
One fast method: there are websites that will make PDFs for you! You upload a file in any common format, provide an email address, and your PDF arrives a few minutes later. You should check the result to make sure the formatting is exactly what you want before you send it to us. We recommend the converter FreePDFConvert.
If you are creating your Quiz solutions in Microsoft Word, you may have this option built in: for Microsoft Office 2007 and later, you can directly save a Word document as a PDF ("File" button → Save As…). (Be sure to keep a copy for your files as a Word document as well, since Word cannot convert PDF files back into Word!)
Of course, it's nice to be able to make PDFs on your own without the help of external websites or proprietary software, and it's really easy. Here are instructions for the most common architectures.
Mac Instructions
On a Mac, saving to PDF is a native option. When you finish writing up your quiz solutions (in whatever format you like – for example, .doc or .jpg), click print. Instead of pressing enter and sending the file to a physical printer, look at the bottom left-hand corner of the dialog box: it says "PDF" with a down arrow. Click "save as PDF" and save the file to somewhere obvious. Ta-da!
Windows Instructions
On a Windows operating system, you can install a free PDF printer, which will add "print to PDF" to your list of printers. We recommend CutePDF Writer, which is easy to install and even easier to use.
Linux Instructions
On a Linux machine, saving to PDF is typically very easy. Most Linux applications that can print are able to save to a PostScript file. The free program GhostScript (included with most Linux distributions) includes ps2pdf, a script that converts a PostScript file to a PDF file. So: simply save to .ps and then run ps2pdf on your .ps file.
Here's a good time to remind you: don't forget to write your applicant ID and not your name on your Qualifying Quiz. (You can find your applicant ID in your online application on the welcome page.) Thanks!
