How to print to PDF in Mac OS
Want to save a document as a PDF but you don’t own Adobe Acrobat? No problem. You can print documents, webpages, or nearly anything to create a PDF file directly from Mac OS X without any additional software. Here’s how to do it:
* Open the document you want to print to a PDF
* Click the File menu and select “Print”, or just hit Command+P
* Look for the “PDF” button in the lower left corner, click on it and select “Save as PDF”
* Click “Save” in the save dialogue box in whatever location you want
That’s all there is to it, you will now have a PDF file created instantly by the print function. You can then view it later, use your favorite PDF editor for Mac (or Windows/Linux) to edit the PDF, distribute it online with something like e-Junkie, or whatever.
This is one of those features of Mac OS that is just wonderful to have and I use it frequently for offline reading and document production. Why buy Acrobat Pro when you can just use any application on the Mac? One of many features where Mac > Windows.
I too find this feature a great help. But… I often print pages from websites that I might want to keep for later reference (a good example is cooking recipes). But often times, I find that the PDF file does not save the file well at all. Either very odd formating, or even missing images, and type. 1) does anyone else have this issue? 2) does anyone have tips or tricks to get it to work correctly?
Thanks!
Here’s an example of a link that won’t correctly ‘print to pdf’…
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/potato-salad-recipe/index.html
no, try clicking the “print backgrounds” checkbox, which will print background images.
[...] some of the free Logic tutorials from WikiAudio or Logic-Cafe and save a few as PDF for later viewing on your Mac, or open them in iBooks on your iPhone and iPad for reading and [...]
I don’t get it. I click on the link above and it takes me to a download for FoxTab PDF converter, for Windows, XP PC etc. What is up with that?
You’re clicking on an ad.
[...] The printer driver I am using is the Pdf995 Printer Driver. And Mac users already have the required functionality without installing [...]
I almost used this feature ONCE… Looked at a print preview. Saw that if wrecked the web page formatting and so I never printed. Now I can’t print normally. Why?
How do I make it go away?
MacBook Pro with Mac OS X 10.6.8
I use save as pdf a lot, but it always enlarges the file size. So, if I want to print a word of 1 MB to pdf, the pdf will be 50 MB of size! Instead I would want to decrease file size when printing to pdf.
Can anyone help with this? Thank you!
[...] their desktop just to have a look at what you’re thinking. If you’re on a Mac you can print to PDF or take a screenshot. … If you’re on a PC, I really can’t help you (maybe [...]
Not a very useful feature or I may not know how to use it properly. If the document has a scroll bar only the part visible gets saved. you actually have to print to pdf twice. once to copy top of document and once to copy bottom.
Somebody feel free to educate me.
how do I in one step:
- print to PDF and save that PDF in a preferred location
- plus email that PDF
so essentially saving myself a copy, and emailing a copy
I could not find any PDF service for that.
thankyou
does anyone know how to change the default “author” of the pdf file.
My default is setting to my computer owner name.
The author is automatically set as the user name that you are logged in as in Mac OS X, you can change that either in general OS X settings or if you have a PDF editor you could change authorship there. Preview has limited functionality of that through the Preference panel > PDF > Annotations.
Does anyone know how to print a pdf from a pdf in the browser (there you get the print dialog from adobe and it doesn’t allow to print to pdf’s). Some pdf’s you can only fill in text in the browser. But it cannot be saved.
A virtual pdf printer you do it. But the installation of for example CUPS fails (OSX 10.5.8).
Any idea?
[...] the ability to natively “print to PDF” directly on the iPad and iPhone, a popular trick on the Mac and in the PC world that allows you to digitally print anything and, in this case, save the [...]