Paperless Office with OS X / PDF
This is a very obvious tip for those who have been using Mac OS X, but for some readers this may be a big, and very welcome surprise.
I used to print hard copies of anything I found on the web that was of educational or inspirational interest. After years of mashing the print button, I have folders full of Photoshop tricks, Flash 3 tutorials (boy, are those scary), and mounds of essays / articles from places like Salon, NY Times and many others.
All that wasted paper and ink drives me nuts, but I simply can't bring myself to throw them away. Besides, one day I may have a design job that requires the use of gleaming, embossed, 3D gold text with faux lighting. You never know...
Today, I never print hard copies of anything, thanks in part to Mac OS X's native support for PDF. Creating PDF files is insanely easy, and doesn't cost a thing. Apple built PDF into the operating system, meaning you can create a PDF file from just about any application that runs natively under OS X.
Most OS X apps allow you to save a PDF by selecting "Export" or "Save As" from the File menu, but not all. Internet Explorer for example, doesn't offer any PDF exporting or saving. The workaround is to fool IE (or any app without native exporting / saving) into thinking you have a printer.
Select "Print" from the top menu bar, and you'll see a basic print dialog box, except for one button at the bottom - "Preview." By clicking Preview, Internet Explorer sends your page to the operating system to draft a preview page before sending the document off to your printer (whether your own one or not). But what's this? Ahhh yes, look at the top menu bar. Your preview is a PDF document.
The application displaying your previewed document is named, well, Preview. Select "Save As" from the File menu, and you have a perfectly rendered PDF document. Of course there are no fancy thumbnails, hyperlinks, or any specialized Acrobat functions, but for most people this is the perfect way to save documents, color graphics and all, without wasting paper and ink.
Comments
You can also select Save as PDF from the Output Options of the Print dialog box. (I have a printer, so I'm not sure if I'd see this option if I didn't have one.)
Also, if you don't have a printer, you can set up a virtual PostScript printer in Print Center. Search the Help Viewer for "virtual + postscript + printer" for instructions.
Posted by: kirkaracha at May 21, 2002 3:48 PM
PDFs rock. At our business, we have print versions of some documents (case studies and product data sheets) but even more are in PDF format on our website. That's why I switched from Quark to InDesign; pretty much for the sheer amount of PDFs I have to make, saves me from all of that Distiller nonsense. Now if they let me have a Mac someday, then I can slip into a PDF/RDF environment (PDF-encapsulated-in-Reality Distortion-Field) :)
Posted by: AJ Kandy at May 22, 2002 9:25 AM
actually you can also just save pages as web archives via ie's save dialog. works perfectly. plus the links, etc keep working..
Posted by: csshsh at May 23, 2002 5:46 AM
