Filed under: TUAW Tips
TUAW Tip: Screen Capture to PDF
TUAW reader Jakob writes that he often uses OS X's "Print as PDF" feature. He asks if there's a way to print only part of a website by dragging out a selection rectangle? Yes, Jakob, there's a very simple way. Yesterday, I posted a Terminal Tip about using OS X's built in command-line screencapture utility. What I didn't mention in that post was that screencapture allows you to grab your shots in PDF format. To use the mouse to capture a rectangle from the screen and then save it to PDF, just issue a command along the following lines:
% screencapture -i -s -tpdf ~/Desktop/foo.pdf
And if you're not big on using Terminal and the Command line, here's another way to approach the problem with Grab. Launch Grab from Applications/Utilities and choose Capture -> Selection. Use the cross hairs to select part of the screen and then print the results to PDF (File -> Print, then PDF -> Save as PDF).
If you need to capture more data than a single screen will allow, consider Paparazzi. It's a donate-ware utility that allows you to enter a URL and a screen size. It loads the web page from the URL you provide and produces an image from that data--regardless of whether you'd have to scroll the screen to see the entire page in a normal web browser. No, it won't save to PDF, but it's pretty easy to convert the images if you have to. Update: The latest version of Paparazzi will save to PDF including searchable text.
In a follow-up message, Jakob mentioned that he's really interested in producing a searchable result. Sure you can save to a web archive but both web archives (use File -> Save as or File -> Save Page as or the equivalent in your favorite browser) and his current method of printing to PDF create pretty big files, even if they are searchable. So here's my final recommendation: invest in Acrobat, not just in Acrobat Reader. In Acrobat, use Document->Extract Pages to save only those portions of the web page you want to keep and delete the rest.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Rafe H. said 8:34AM on 5-18-2007
Performing a screencapture to PDF will only give you a raster (btimapped) image, and not a vector image which contains fonts, lines, bitmaps, etc. (the latter has elements with infinite resolution). Maybe Leopard will "fix" this, considering the display engine in OS X is PDF-driven.
Print to PDF, Preview, and Automator can give you much of the functionality that these 3rd party programs give. For example, you can print an entire web page to PDF, select an individual page in Preview, copy to clipboard (Command-C), and then new from clipboard (Command-N). You can use Automator to combine PDFs into a single document.
Finally, you can maintain the scalable PDF elements within a selection box by first creating a PDF, then selecting what you like in Preview using the Select tool, then Command-C, then Command-N.
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starwxrwx said 8:39AM on 5-18-2007
I'm sure you can do it all for free and not have to pay ridiculous amounts of money to Adobe!
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mithras said 9:02AM on 5-18-2007
It really would be nice if Leopard brought a text-aware screenshot ability. All that information is available -- for example with Cocoa's legacy fax: message -- so I'm sure it wouldn't be too very hard to make it work. And with the imminent use of vector UI elements, having arbitrary-resolution vector screenshots would be spectacular.
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TThumb said 11:29AM on 5-18-2007
For a free and fast 'Save to PDF' alternative, I used OS X 'Keyboard and Mouse' option found in system preferences. Now, all I do is hit command+P, followed by command+option+control+P to bring up the 'save as PDF' command found in the print dialog box. I use it all the time to save PDF's of web pages to my hard drive. Since I also print these pages out, this opiton does a nice job of making the page breaks I need. To do the same, just:
1) Select System Preferences, then Keyboard & Mouse, then the Keyboard Shortcuts button
2) Scroll to the bottom and highlight 'Application Keyboard Shortcuts', then click the plus sign + button.
3) Click on 'All Applications' and selct the app of interest. (Safari)
4) In the 'Menu Title' box type "Save as PDF..."
Keep the Capital letters the same and those are three periods after PDF
5) Enter your own keyboard short cut. I used command+option+control+P
6) Click Add.
7) Now go to your app of chocie (safari) and go to the web page you want to make into a PDF. Then hit command+P followed by your shortcut. ( command+option+control+P).
8) the result is a save as dialog box that you can then navigate to the folder where you want to store the new PDf.
Research shows that this option does not work with all apps. I think the app as to be coca complient. So for instance this shortcut does not work in Microsopt word, etc.
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ziggybopper said 9:39AM on 5-18-2007
Umm, to save PDF files displayed in Safari, I "print to PDF."
To save a selection of, or a whole web page, I highlight what I want, then control click and "Export PDF."
In both cases, the files are saved as "PDF+text" and I import into DevonThink for a searchable archive. I have over 5,000 files (close to 5GB) in my Finance database (bills, internet receipts, documents), and a few GB each in my Product Manual database, and my General database. And I backup to DVD regularly. I'll be selling my file cabinets soon.
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Chris said 9:51AM on 5-18-2007
"No, it won't save to PDF, but it's pretty easy to convert the images if you have to." Oh yes it will. Paparazzi will save to JPEG, PNG, TIFF and PDF. I use this truly excellent piece of software all the time.
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Ran Barton said 10:19AM on 5-18-2007
Saft for Safari helps with printing web sites as one long PDF, instead of 8x11 chunks. Not free byt very useful.
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Dave Barnes said 10:39AM on 5-18-2007
Acrobat is very expensive (Standard is $300) unless you get it in a suite that is even more money.
There are other PDF manipulation tools (e.g., PDFClerk) that cost a lot less. VersionTracker or MacUpdate can help you find them.
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Pepe said 4:24PM on 5-21-2007
If you just wish to get the PDFs you have smaller this program (http://www.apagoinc.com/prod_home.php?prod_id=30), PDF Shrink is great! Sure, it is 35 bucks and is one of those apps that do just one silly thing... But hey, this might be what you need. Check out their other stuff to :-)
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jason mark said 1:26PM on 5-18-2007
Wow, those are lots of words for a "simple" solution. Easier is:
* Set up machine to take all screenshots as PDF by default. There are many apps which do this, or you can easily go to the terminal and type:
defaults write com.apple.screencapture type pdf
killall SystemUIServer
Then the normal Command-Option-4 "Just works"
Another workaround is:
1) Command-Option-SHIFT-4: This let's you select an area to copy to clipboard.
2) open Preview
3) File/New (command-n)
4) Save as PDF
Jason
http://www.gravityswitch.com
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AAwoken said 2:13PM on 5-18-2007
How bout Yojimbo. It stores,indexes, tags, etc...Oh and pdf's
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mike said 3:04PM on 5-18-2007
You could also try the "Nuke Anything Enhanced" extension for Firefox.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/951
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JeffDM said 11:21AM on 5-19-2007
I don't think saving a single image in a PDF is worthwhile. PDF is good for document arrangements of text, and one or more raster and vector images. For a single image such as a screen shot, just save it to PNG or JPG and you probably would have a smaller file than whatever the PDF uses for compression.
Saving a document or page as PDF makes sense, just "Print to PDF" as suggested above.
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Maxwell said 12:05PM on 5-19-2007
@TThumb
Cool idea, but it doesn't work for me in Firefox. Oh, well.
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