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If you have been using a Mac since the first days of Mac OS X, you likely know that Apple hid one of the most useful tools in the “Print” window: the ability to save any document or any screen as a PDF! As long as you can print what you’re looking at, you can save it as a PDF (and yes, there are always a few exceptions).
If you’re relatively new to the Mac, however, you probably have never seen this before, or you may wonder why this is a valuable tool. First, the PDF format is ubiquitous: Mac users, Windows users, Linux users, iPhones, and nearly every other major computer format on the planet can read PDF files. Plus, PDF files are read-only, meaning other people cannot change your file. For example, it’s a great way to email someone your resume (which they cannot change) and have the formatting be perfect. Just because you saved your resume as a Word file doesn’t mean it will look exactly the same in all versions of Word, but the PDF should.
This means that if you are working in a program and either know the other person does not have the same program or you are unsure whether the other person can read the document you’re creating, saving the document as a PDF basically guarantees they will be able to read — but not change — what you send to them.
In addition to providing a compatible document, I save a bunch of things as PDFs: web pages (so I’ll get the complete page, including formatting and photos), copies of my monthly iCal calendar, my task list in OmniFocus, and more. That way I have an exact, visible copy. Sure, I can’t edit it, but if I want to edit my document, I just open it in its application. So how do we use this neat tool?
Saving a Document as a PDF
The first thing you must do is make sure you can print what you are looking at. Few programs do not offer the ability to print your documents, so this shouldn’t be a problem. You will always find the Print option under the application’s File menu. Try selecting it now. Here’s what my Firefox print menu looks like:
Notice that there is a PDF button in the lower left-hand corner of the window. This button is in that location in every application’s print menu. While the print menu may look different in each application, the location of the button is always the same.
If you click on the button, you’ll get this pop-up list:
Here, you’ve got several options, and I hope most of them make sense to you simply by reading their names (PDF-X means your PDF will be encrypted). Click on the Save as PDF option. When you do, you’ll get a screen to save you file as a PDF. It’s the same “Save As…” window you’d get in any other application. Title your PDF whatever you like, save it, and you’re done!
An easy place to save your PDF is the Desktop. If you double click the PDF, it will likely open in Preview, unless you’ve installed Adobe’s Acrobat Reader (in which case it will likely open there). Regardless, any application that can read PDFs will open the file. You can email it to someone else as well.
What do you think about this tip? Do you have better advice for PDFs? Talk about your PDF strategy in the comments.
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I am trying to save my thesis in this way, but it splits into two files, the first 3-5 pages in one and the rest in another. Can you advice? I am using a mac os x
Thanks
Hi,
I had the same result as vm above — when Saving a Word doc to PDF, OS X splits the output into two files. I don’t know why this is happening, but there is a built-in python script in Mac OS X that will let you join the two files back together from Terminal. See this link for details:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~benhdj/Mac/unix.html#joinPDF
Robert Schuessler’s last blog post..Avatar
I am having similar problems as VM, although the software Robert Schuessler recommended to me isn’t fixing the problem either. I am able to print them running a Windows emulator now, so I am just going to continue with that solution until I can figure something else out.
Pylon Press Screen Printing
Please note that although the article states that PDF files cannot be changed, this is simply not true. Anyone with Adobe Acrobat Pro can open and edit the text in a pdf file. I believe more appropriate language would be that it is more difficult to change the text in a pdf file than in a document format for which many people have an editing program, such as a Microsoft Word document. This increase in difficulty is due to fewer people having a PDF editing program; it is not anything inherent in the file format.
That said, I also frequently use PDF files to distribute documents that I want to be likely to retain the page layout and be more difficult to edit.
Regarding the printing to two files, I’ve had this experience on Mac OS X when the page orientation in a source document switches from Landscape to Portrait, or the other way around. Perhaps this is what has occurred in the thesis or Word doc….
I WANT TO DOWNLOAD FREELY SOFTWARE TO SAVE ANY FILE AS PDF TYPE