A straightforward PDF converter would just convert whatever you gave it to PDF format without much chance to change it.
If you're looking for "Creative freedom", you probably want something that integrates directly to your wordprocessor.
There are some PDF generators available that act as a printer driver - once they're installed, you can select them when you print anything (from any program), and they will save the file as PDF instead of printing anything.
There are several products that do that, but I don't know of any freeware ones.
You might also consider looking into OpenOffice, which is a freeware alternative to Microsoft office. OpenOffice supports PDF saving as standard, so you can save your documents straight out as PDFs, no hassle. I use it myself, and I've done exactly that with some of my own docs, so I can vouch for how easy it is. (it also loads Word docs fine, so in that respect, it does work as a converter)
OpenOffice is available for download at
www.OpenOffice.org
Hope that helps.
