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The built-in MacOS support for PDF is great. Any app that can print to a printer can print to a PDF file. And the Preview app, despite its name, can edit PDFs t

The built-in MacOS support for PDF is great. Any app that can print to a printer can print to a PDF file. And the Preview app, despite its name, can edit PDFs to add annotations (text, graphics), add or remove pages, etc. There's also a feature by which you sign your name on a piece of paper, hold it up to the camera, and it will capture it and insert it into a the document. It's convenient that these are built in and don't require paying for something bloated like Acrobat Pro.

cptskippy 10y ago
Doesn't Quartz use PostScript for rendering the MacOS desktop?
- watersb 10y ago
  NeXT used Display PostScript, and I would create widgets by writing PostScript code. Quartz is like QuickTime plus something like OpenGL shaders plus something like NeXTStep "display PDF". I have no idea if this encouraged PDF integration into the display model. Rather, I would say that NeXT, and then Apple, had some great IP and cross-licensing of PostScript and PDF display tech, and so they could ship the OS distribution with PDF as the printing model. That is, one reason Windows might today re-render PDF → XPS → PDF is that they had needed to create display tech like PDF anyway, and so they did, and this was after humans had been playing with HTML for a while... Silverlight was pretty.
  - jahewson 10y ago
    > PDF → XPS → PDF That's not what's happening unless you have a printer which directly supports PDF. Most likely what is happening on Windows is either: PDF → XPS → PCL PDF → XPS → PostScript Depending on the printer. Which makes far more sense and is analogous to what OS X does: PDF → Quartz → PCL PDF → Quartz → PostScript There's really no notable difference between these two approaches as both Quartz and XPS are based on the same printing model as PDF. Don't confuse Quartz with PDF just because it offers import/export to PDF - Quartz has its own internal imaging model.
- simonh 10y ago
  NeXT Step did, but they switched to 'Display PDF' in OSX to save licensing costs as PDF is free to use.
msarnoff 10y ago
I worked on Preview at Apple from 2008-2011 and created the signature capture feature. It's always cool to hear people talk about it!
- martinald 10y ago
  It's such an awesome feature. I don't use macOS as much as I used to but I will always switch to my Mac when I get a doc to sign, which is a lot. It must have saved many many millions of sheets of paper.
  - CMay 10y ago
    To be fair, on a Microsoft Surface you would just use your pen to sign directly on the screen which is much more natural. It doesn't make any sense to me that Steve Jobs was so anti-pen, while also pushing for intuitive interaction.
    - itazula 10y ago
      Perhaps if someone added electromagnetic traction so that the screen provided some push-back to the pen tip, it would seem "natural," but as things are now, my on-screen signature is as good as a chicken scratch.
      - TheCoreh 10y ago
        you could get a very thin sheet of translucent paper, and put it on top of the screen. the pen should still work, and you'll get a more natural feel
    - tinus_hn 10y ago
      Providing a pen is an excuse to leave controls that are too small to use with your fingers. So while Windows now has a Touch mode where many controls are larger, many others which are also essential to using the system are tiny and hard or impossible to use by touch. That is what Steve Jobs was trying (successfully) to avoid.
    - 10y ago

cptskippy 10y ago

Doesn't Quartz use PostScript for rendering the MacOS desktop?

watersb 10y ago
NeXT used Display PostScript, and I would create widgets by writing PostScript code. Quartz is like QuickTime plus something like OpenGL shaders plus something like NeXTStep "display PDF". I have no idea if this encouraged PDF integration into the display model. Rather, I would say that NeXT, and then Apple, had some great IP and cross-licensing of PostScript and PDF display tech, and so they could ship the OS distribution with PDF as the printing model. That is, one reason Windows might today re-render PDF → XPS → PDF is that they had needed to create display tech like PDF anyway, and so they did, and this was after humans had been playing with HTML for a while... Silverlight was pretty.
- jahewson 10y ago
  > PDF → XPS → PDF That's not what's happening unless you have a printer which directly supports PDF. Most likely what is happening on Windows is either: PDF → XPS → PCL PDF → XPS → PostScript Depending on the printer. Which makes far more sense and is analogous to what OS X does: PDF → Quartz → PCL PDF → Quartz → PostScript There's really no notable difference between these two approaches as both Quartz and XPS are based on the same printing model as PDF. Don't confuse Quartz with PDF just because it offers import/export to PDF - Quartz has its own internal imaging model.
simonh 10y ago
NeXT Step did, but they switched to 'Display PDF' in OSX to save licensing costs as PDF is free to use.

msarnoff 10y ago

I worked on Preview at Apple from 2008-2011 and created the signature capture feature. It's always cool to hear people talk about it!

martinald 10y ago
It's such an awesome feature. I don't use macOS as much as I used to but I will always switch to my Mac when I get a doc to sign, which is a lot. It must have saved many many millions of sheets of paper.
- CMay 10y ago
  To be fair, on a Microsoft Surface you would just use your pen to sign directly on the screen which is much more natural. It doesn't make any sense to me that Steve Jobs was so anti-pen, while also pushing for intuitive interaction.
  - itazula 10y ago
    Perhaps if someone added electromagnetic traction so that the screen provided some push-back to the pen tip, it would seem "natural," but as things are now, my on-screen signature is as good as a chicken scratch.
    - TheCoreh 10y ago
      you could get a very thin sheet of translucent paper, and put it on top of the screen. the pen should still work, and you'll get a more natural feel
  - tinus_hn 10y ago
    Providing a pen is an excuse to leave controls that are too small to use with your fingers. So while Windows now has a Touch mode where many controls are larger, many others which are also essential to using the system are tiny and hard or impossible to use by touch. That is what Steve Jobs was trying (successfully) to avoid.
  - 10y ago