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Another great related feature is how easy it is to “print” to Preview and save as PDF. It makes it very easy to save copies of confirmations, payment receipts,

Another great related feature is how easy it is to “print” to Preview and save as PDF. It makes it very easy to save copies of confirmations, payment receipts, etc when sites don’t provide a PDF link. If you haven't tried it, make sure you are printing using the system dialog, and select "Open in Preview" in the drop-down list in the lower-left corner.

deleted 5y ago
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lotsofpulp 5y ago
Is there any reason it took so long for Microsoft to include print to PDF in Windows other than bad management?
- dchest 5y ago
  I believe this was due to Adobe threatening them with a lawsuit https://betanews.com/2006/06/02/adobe-to-sue-microsoft-for-pdf-feature/ https://betanews.com/2006/06/02/adobe-to-sue-microsoft-for-p...
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    According to the article, Adobe helped Apple? But threatened to sue Microsoft? I wonder what the details are. >However, Adobe has freely offered the specifications on PDF to other companies. Apple’s Mac OS X operating system has built in support for reading and saving of PDF files.
jfk13 5y ago
Or instead of "Open in Preview" (and then save it somewhere from Preview.app), you can directly use "Save to Web Receipts" from the Print dialog.
kergonath 5y ago
> Another great related feature is how easy it is to “print” to Preview and save as PDF. It's an OS-wide feature. Any application can print to PDF without specific support from that app.
- astrange 5y ago
  Well, you need specific support if you have custom views or views that draw bitmap images, otherwise it won't look great.
  - kergonath 5y ago
    But then it won’t look good in print either, right? The pdf is just a file with what would have otherwise gone to the printer.
    - astrange 4y ago
      Sure, but I think "export to PDF" might actually be a more common feature than printing at this point.
      - kergonath 4y ago
        Fair enough
bigtex 5y ago
I think that has been a standard feature since at least OS X 10.2.
- JKCalhoun 5y ago
  Yes, when Apple bought NeXT (I know, more like the other way around) they wanted the graphics model to follow something akin to NeXT's — which was based around Display Postscript. The modern equivalent was of course PDF. If you could render into a PDF context with your graphics engine (CoreGraphics) you would have a near print-ready document. (You still need to pass along additional info regarding whether to print duplex, number of copies, etc.) So anyway, Save to PDF, Open in Preview were basically free.
Anechoic 5y ago
Another great related feature is how easy it is to “print” to Preview BTW, if you are trying to save a protected PDF from Adobe reader that won't let you save it in an unprotected format that's compatible with Preview, there is "print" document trick you can try since Adobe Reader blocks the system print dialog: pause the queue for your printer (if you don't have a printer, just "install" a network postscript printer), and print the document. The document is then saved to a non-secured temp PDF file in /var/spool/cups, to a filename starting with "d" (ls -l -t to find the most recent file). That file is normally deleted after being sent to the printer, but my pausing the print queue, the file is there long enough to copy somewhere. Rename the document, and you're good to go. This is a trick from the Mac OS X Hints days, and still works, as of at least Catalina.
mortenjorck 4y ago
Such a great feature. I’ve been using it for years and have what is effectively a filing cabinet of documents in digital form.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

lotsofpulp 5y ago

Is there any reason it took so long for Microsoft to include print to PDF in Windows other than bad management?

dchest 5y ago
I believe this was due to Adobe threatening them with a lawsuit https://betanews.com/2006/06/02/adobe-to-sue-microsoft-for-pdf-feature/ https://betanews.com/2006/06/02/adobe-to-sue-microsoft-for-p...
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  According to the article, Adobe helped Apple? But threatened to sue Microsoft? I wonder what the details are. >However, Adobe has freely offered the specifications on PDF to other companies. Apple’s Mac OS X operating system has built in support for reading and saving of PDF files.

jfk13 5y ago

Or instead of "Open in Preview" (and then save it somewhere from Preview.app), you can directly use "Save to Web Receipts" from the Print dialog.

kergonath 5y ago

> Another great related feature is how easy it is to “print” to Preview and save as PDF. It's an OS-wide feature. Any application can print to PDF without specific support from that app.

astrange 5y ago
Well, you need specific support if you have custom views or views that draw bitmap images, otherwise it won't look great.
- kergonath 5y ago
  But then it won’t look good in print either, right? The pdf is just a file with what would have otherwise gone to the printer.
  - astrange 4y ago
    Sure, but I think "export to PDF" might actually be a more common feature than printing at this point.
    - kergonath 4y ago
      Fair enough

bigtex 5y ago

I think that has been a standard feature since at least OS X 10.2.

JKCalhoun 5y ago
Yes, when Apple bought NeXT (I know, more like the other way around) they wanted the graphics model to follow something akin to NeXT's — which was based around Display Postscript. The modern equivalent was of course PDF. If you could render into a PDF context with your graphics engine (CoreGraphics) you would have a near print-ready document. (You still need to pass along additional info regarding whether to print duplex, number of copies, etc.) So anyway, Save to PDF, Open in Preview were basically free.

Anechoic 5y ago

Another great related feature is how easy it is to “print” to Preview BTW, if you are trying to save a protected PDF from Adobe reader that won't let you save it in an unprotected format that's compatible with Preview, there is "print" document trick you can try since Adobe Reader blocks the system print dialog: pause the queue for your printer (if you don't have a printer, just "install" a network postscript printer), and print the document. The document is then saved to a non-secured temp PDF file in /var/spool/cups, to a filename starting with "d" (ls -l -t to find the most recent file). That file is normally deleted after being sent to the printer, but my pausing the print queue, the file is there long enough to copy somewhere. Rename the document, and you're good to go. This is a trick from the Mac OS X Hints days, and still works, as of at least Catalina.

mortenjorck 4y ago

Such a great feature. I’ve been using it for years and have what is effectively a filing cabinet of documents in digital form.