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Mac 101: Five tips for working with PDF files in Mac OS X

by Sang Tang Aug 12th 2010 at 11:00AM

One of the best things about Mac OS X is its built-in support for PDF files. Instead of testing your sanity while you wait (sometimes it can seem like forever) for Adobe Acrobat to open a PDF file, you can use Preview.app to open them up quickly. However, built-in PDF support allows you to do other neat things as well. Here are five of my favorites.

Print
At the top of the list is the ability to create a PDF from almost any document. Whether it's a Word or Pages document, a spreadsheet, or a Web page, in most instances you'll be able to create PDFs out of them. Many Windows users print to a PDF printer in order to create a PDF file, and in a similar manner, creating PDFs on Mac OS X involves selecting the print option from the app that you're working in. Within the app, click on "File" and then select "Print." Then, you'll be presented with a dialog box with a "PDF" button on the left. Click on this button and select "Save as PDF."

Annotate
Once you've created your PDF, you can annotate it. Open up your PDF in Preview.app, click on "View," and select "Show Annotations Toolbar." After doing so, a toolbar will appear on the bottom left of your document. Alternatively, the toolbar will also be displayed if you select any of the annotate options under the "Tools" menu. Annotations include the ability to create text boxes (useful for filling out forms), add notes, or highlight and create shapes (among other things).

Rearrange
You can also move pages around within Preview.app (like rearranging the songs in an iTunes playlist). Simply choose "Contact sheet" or "Thumbnail" view from the sidebar, and then drag and drop your pages as you see fit.

Bookmarks
Let's say that a couple of pages within a PDF interest you, and you want to revisit them later. To do this, click on "Bookmarks" in Preview.app and select "Add Bookmark" (or use the Cmd+D shortcut). One of the neat things about this feature is that, even if your PDF isn't open, you can still access your bookmarks.

Crop
I've made no secret about my fondness of Preview.app's image editing ability, and this extends to PDFs as well. One neat image editing feature for PDFs is the ability to select an area and create a new image based on this selection. To do this in the PDF, click on the "Select" tool, select an area, and copy it. Then, in Preview.app, click on "File," select "New from clipboard," and voila, your selection is in a new document. This document can be saved in a variety of formats, including PDF, JPG, and PNG.

PDF parsing and rendering are core features of Mac OS X and iOS. While providing for native support for PDF files, it also served as the foundation for the recently released Web-based jailbreak for the iPhone.



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One of the best things about Mac OS X is its built-in support for PDF files. Instead of testing your sanity while you wait (sometimes it...
 

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editiwizard

I've recently had to work with attaching audio and video files in a PDF for a project but they don't show up in Preview. The only PDF reader that shows those attachments on MacOS is Adobe Reader for Mac.

The horror.

August 23 2010 at 1:27 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
edwinaoki

Don't forget that you can also encrypt your PDF documents. Choose the Security Options... button when you're saving your PDF from the Print dialog (#1, above). Then you can specify a password required to open, print, or edit the PDFs.

August 19 2010 at 4:26 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Chris

Other great uses for Preview are:

Image Resizing. Under Tools>Adjust size, you can set the exact size and dpi you need.

Instant Alpha tool. Lets you easily remove backgrounds from an image. Exactly like in iWork.

A unique lasso tool that let's you roughly trace your object then fine to each point of your selection. Great for cutting something out that is too complex for the Instant Alpha tool.

A few years ago people thought Apple was making a Photoshop competitor. But in reality there were putting photoshop like image editing tools in the core OS. So developers you can advantage of them. Ala, Pixelmator.

Snow Leopard's Preview is a gem on the Mac OS.

August 12 2010 at 11:44 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Chris

Yes you can in Preview. Just drag and drop the pages from one PDF to the other and save or save as.

August 12 2010 at 11:38 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
bob

What do you suggest to annotate PDFs with iPad?

August 12 2010 at 3:52 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to bob's comment
KentMD

iAnotate

August 17 2010 at 4:56 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
jollyllama

You know what I hate about preview? Searching text. I would kill for a search function that at least allows for consistently effective use of apostrophes, if nothing else. Other operators would be welcome as well.

August 12 2010 at 2:08 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Johan

You could add a sixth tip, "Hacking":

Starting somewhere around MacOS X 10.5.8 on Intel *) Preview will no longer allow you to save encrypted PDFs as PDF. You can save a PostScript file but it will not open in Preview. If you have installed pstopdf you can find out why:

$ ps2pdf page.ps
This PostScript file was created from an encrypted PDF file.
Redistilling encrypted PDF is not permitted.
%%[ Error: undefined; OffendingCommand: get ]%%
AFPL Ghostscript 8.54: Unrecoverable error, exit code 1

There is some extra encrypted junk inserted into the postscript file, causing even the most GPL'd interpreter to fail.

Replace the lines starting with 'mark currentfile eexec' and ending with 'cleartomark' with 'cg_md begin' turning this:

%%BeginPageSetup
mark currentfile eexec
8502164B704985A891FACF06BB4380CDCEAB2982A593EB8CA31564A1B4C883BEB175EEF21476E498
03FDB58AF33D6445F2313BD6D083C700CDDFBB7A24A1508FDBD11A6FA8AC248F4080B9E1F202FCA9
D64C360CB720667193BD1CDE15910F59EBC27DC70C8AD440CA831D627EE0D1B1C0ECA4B34E762D71
26A88E2F60AF1FCF1134D0098C55F77D083EE7746082F5A31FD93DAAEB1DED10B46CDB3966E86635
5E366A965A28E9504D3C502D5CC93FEC9463F5BAF80A1395B6C1AC6F3463802DEF81B1D2E4391DFA
EDF659FD899F31892ABD8B205F6FF6955290217390B08136B0F0C543369805121F2877619433F07E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bp

into this:

%%BeginPageSetup
cg_md begin
bp

There will be one of these blocks at the beginning of each page. The encrypted junk can easily be translated using pscrypt.c [http://swtch.com/usr/local/plan9/src/cmd/postscript/misc/pscrypt.c] and translates to this:

/currentdistillerparams where { pop /pdfmark where
{pop (This PostScript file was created from an encrypted PDF file.n) print
(Redistilling encrypted PDF is not permitted.n) print
userdict /quit get exec }if} if end cg_md begin systemdict begin
currentfile closefile

A protection scheme so lame you probably couldn't name the sixth section "Hacking" :)


*) My old PowerBook running 10.5.8 allows me to save encrypted PDFs as PDFs but the very same version on my Intel 10.5.8 does not. 10.6.2 does not play 'nice' either...

August 12 2010 at 1:40 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
marcintosh

I'm having the hardest time trying to automate the first one. Every time I make an e-mail, I have to make a PDF of it from Safari so that other people in the process can mark it up with edits. Under Tiger I was able to script printing it to the Adobe PDF driver, but under Snow Leopard Apple seems to have disabled that technique.

The closest I've gotten is making a PDF of the code named with the job number. What I need is a PDF of the rendered page named with the job number (vs. the page title, which is the default)

If anyone has any ideas, there's a beer in it for you.

August 12 2010 at 12:32 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Brian Yamabe

Be aware that saving in Preview.app can corrupt your PDF such that copy and pasting of text and searching no longer work on the document.

http://discussions.info.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=10908737

August 12 2010 at 12:31 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Mitchell

You can also add additional PDF pages to another PDF using the thumbnail view and dragging them in. Personal favorite!

August 12 2010 at 11:32 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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