Ok, so I found out that Office 2007 has PDF conversion built into the professional version and you can download the add-in for free from Microsoft for the personal edition. See link to download this add-in:
Download Details - Microsoft Download Center - 2007 Microsoft Office Add-in: Microsoft Save as PDF or XPS
New issue: I have used this to convert to pdfs and am planning on using Lebans to merge the multiple PDFs but I have a new issue. When I save as a PDF from Word or Excel, it automatically assumes the page setup settings. This is fine with me except that it orients landscape PDFs horizontally, making it difficult to merge multiple pages. For example, say I have 3 pages I need to merge: 1.) a cover sheet created in Word, saved as a PDF, oriented as a portrait. 2.) a spreadsheet from Excel, saved as a PDF, oriented as a portrait and 3.) a spreadsheet from Excel, saved as a PDF and oriented as a landscape. If I try to merge all three of these PDFs into one PDF, the first two pages will be portrait orientation and the last page is landscape orientation. To my knowledge, there is no conventional way to rotate a single PDF and save it without Acrobat (writer). Maybe this would be a better question for Access but is there any way to rotate and save a PDF (in Word/Excel, Acrobat Reader, or Access using Lebans)?