Hack 40 Save As PDF with Mac OS X

Create PDFs quickly and easily from any Macintosh OS X program.

Apple built a "Save As PDF" capability right into the Macintosh OS X Print dialog box. Any time you go to print a document, you can choose Save As PDF . . . from the bottom of the Print dialog box. Unfortunately, this approach provides no options and tends to produce large files, but at least it is a quick solution to producing PDFs. This option is available at the bottom left of any Print dialog box, as shown in Figure 4-9.

Figure 4-9. A Print dialog box with a Save As PDF . . . option

If you click the Save As PDF . . . button, a file dialog box will ask you where to put the resulting PDF file. Select a location, click OK, and the Mac will print to a PDF file.

The results are different from those created by Distiller. On an early draft of Chapter 1 of this book, without figures, Mac OS X produced a 344 KB file, while the PDFMaker macro produced a 144 KB file.

There aren't any obvious configuration options for Save as PDF . . . , but if you have Mac OS X 10.3 or later, you can choose settings through the Filters tab of the ColorSync utility's Preferences window. (The ColorSync utility is in MacintoshHD:Applications:Utilities.) If you check PDF Workflow in the Domains tab, you'll be able to change your PDF options from the Print dialog box as well.