[coolbrze]

For my business, I write the proposals in MS Word & e-mail most of them. Is there a way to write them in Word but transfer them to an uneditable format such as a .pdf file or something?

[Keyboard Cowboy]

Sounds like you need a copy of Adobe Acrobat Standard.
There are some cheaper third parting programs like DeskPDF what will only print your doc as a PDF.

If you are using Office 2007, there is
Download details: 2007 Microsoft Office Add-in: Microsoft Save as PDF or XPS

[Mak213]

You could just change the properties of the .doc to read only. That will prevent them from editing the original .doc itself. Note that this only prevents editing. It does not stop copy/paste of the document to a new blank document.

[DoubleHelix]

Adobe Acrobat is probably serious overkill and really expensive. You can get a free PDF printer that will "print" a Word document to a PDF.

PDF Creator

If you need more functionality, there are several products available that are far cheaper than what Adobe offers.
PDF Converter Software - PDF Converter 6 Enterprise & Professional, PDF Create 6 & PDF Converter 6

[CntdwnToExtn]

I use CutePDF Writer.
Print like you normally would - File - Print - Select CutePDF as your printer.
Free as well.

edit: If it's at work see if your photo copier can scan to PDF and email it. I'll do that quite often too.

[Osiris]

Download details: 2007 Microsoft Office Add-in: Microsoft Save as PDF

[oldskool]

Also, if you have OpenOffice (it's completely free), you can save Word files to .pdf format.

[hollyoaks777]

or mark it as final is another option which will not alllow editing

[TheMajor]

I use PrimoPDF. It's free and easy to use. Just open your Word file, click "Print" and select PrimoPDF. Make sure to set PrimoPDF to "Prepress" for best quality of images. It will save it as a .pdf file.