100 Tips #21: How To Save PDF Files

By

default100tips.jpg

If Apple were interested in marketing their computers to people who live just to print, they’d probably use a slogan like: “Macs: PDF everywhere.” Or something.

Because it’s true. The ability to turn anything that’s printable into a PDF file is built right in to the OS X operating system. And it’s easy to get to from anywhere.

Say you have a document. It doesn’t really matter what it is, or what application you used to create it – as long as you can print it, the chances are you can turn it into a PDF.

Just hit Command+P, or select Print from the File menu. You’ll see a button labelled “PDF” at the bottom-left of the Print dialog; click this, and you get a bunch of PDF options. The second one down is “Save as PDF…” That’s all there is to it.

20100602-savepdf.jpg

If you have other PDF-friendly applications installed, they will appear here, so you can save PDFs directly to those applications.

You can save all sorts of things as PDFs. Documents, spreadsheets, web pages, notes, photo contact sheets, anything. If you can print it, you can PDF it.

Every time I show this to a newcomer who’s switched from Windows, they smile and their eyes light up. Then they say: “Why hasn’t it always been that easy?”

By which they mean: “Why wasn’t it that easy on Windows?”

Newsletters

Daily round-ups or a weekly refresher, straight from Cult of Mac to your inbox.

  • The Weekender

    The week's best Apple news, reviews and how-tos from Cult of Mac, every Saturday morning. Our readers say: "Thank you guys for always posting cool stuff" -- Vaughn Nevins. "Very informative" -- Kenly Xavier.