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CUPS-PDF for OS X: Make a PDF "Printer"



Sometimes my students annoy me, particularly when they turn in papers as Microsoft Word documents (but not just then). I have to open each one and go through the Save as PDF dialog over and over again. It occurred to me, however, that computers are good at doing repetitive tasks (that's why I'm the instructor, it only took a couple of years for me to come to that realization). A search yielded this tip from macOSXhints on batch converting Word files to PDF, which in turn lead me to discover the CUPS-PDF Package for Mac OS X, a nice little utility that wraps the CUPS-PDF module in a standard Mac installer. Once you do this you'll have a new "virtual printer" which, when you send it a standard print job, will automatically spit out a PDF to ~/Desktop/cups-pdf/. It's like "Save to PDF," but without having to name the file and choose the location, etc. You can even create a Desktop Printer (as we showed you earlier) and leave it on your Desktop or in your Dock for drag and drop converting.

So if you just want to save a few clicks, or you're interested in automating print to pdf tasks, CUPS-PDF is very handy. It is a free download from Adam Knight at codepoetry.

Sometimes my students annoy me, particularly when they turn in papers as Microsoft Word documents (but not just then). I have to open each...
 

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Thomas

Will this allow me to have clickable links in my PDFs? Last time I checked, Adobe Acrobat couldn't do that an the built in PDF creator couldn't do that.

March 24 2007 at 8:58 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
sherman

Just open the Word file in TextEdit if Word documents annoy you. I almost never open Word anymore.

March 23 2007 at 10:02 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
James

I can understand getting upset over getting given .docX documents from students but .doc is a standard. Everything these days supports .doc (eg. TextEdit)

March 23 2007 at 9:27 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
mithras

It seriously annoys me that printing to PDF in OS X is not easily Applescriptable. It's even impervious to GUI scripting! It would seem obvious that having a facility for batch-converting documents to PDF would be a useful feature for OS X to offer.

March 23 2007 at 10:41 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Dane

Making a desktop printer out of the virtual printer here seems like a great idea - but it has some issues.

When I dragged a .doc file over it, it didn't convert that file but instead a file that I already had open in Word. SO it seems like it switched to Word and just 'printed' the currently open document to PDF instead of waiting for the file I wanted to load. Just something to be aware of.

March 23 2007 at 8:42 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
ricosuave

one useful free pdf printer for windowze is cutepdf.com

March 23 2007 at 2:13 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Rafe H.

"For you to say you get 'annoyed' when you get papers in Word format is just silly. Your statement annoys me."

Requiring that the instructor purchase MS Word to read his student's papers is like requiring all participants in a meeting to bring their typewriters so they can read the memo I'm handing out.

Reading my memo should be free and none of the participants cares at all what tool I used to create it.

Microsoft has made millions from people who are comfortable using Word to read documents. They will spend half that much money suppressing PDF.

March 23 2007 at 1:02 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
umijin

Well...

I have the same problem with student papers and have required them to all be submitted as PDF files. Unfortunately, the problem isn't students that use Macs. They can handle the PDF button in the Print dialog box. The problem is WINDOZE users. They don't have a way to save as PDF in basic Windows setups. So, I've found a few free options for them. Three are PDF print drivers and one is a website that will convert many file formats to PDF for FREE if the file is under 1MB.

You can see my list here: http://sensei.ad.umuc.edu/cfiedler/otherinfo/savingpdffilesinwindows.html

For Mr. "Harsh", your comments suggest a lack of understanding. MS Word is not a standard format when students don't have Office or even know what their word processor app is. This is true for most of my students. Furthermore, the .docX format can't be opened by the Mac version of MS Word. So, the best way is for them to submit as PDF.

March 22 2007 at 10:55 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
harsh

You get annoyed because students hand in papers in Word format? I'm 100% pro Apple, but you do realize that MS Word is the standard out there for word processing, right? For you to say you get 'annoyed' when you get papers in Word format is just silly. Your statement annoys me.

March 22 2007 at 10:20 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Shaaun

Couldn't Automator and Pages do the same thing?

March 22 2007 at 9:07 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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