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PDF creator (freeware)

S

Sic

macrumors 6502
Original poster
hey, i did a search and couldn't find anything so sorry if i've overlooked it. what's the best/a decent freeware app for creating pdf's in OSX? you can probably tell from this post that i'm a pdf n00b 😱!!
 
All in the Box

All th stuff you need to create PDF's is built it

Go to print and select 'save as...' from the PDF drop down at the bottom left

You can rearrange orders, compile and all that by using automator actions

Hope this helps
 
OS X can create PDFs. When you click on Print from the File menu or hit Command-P, look at the lower left corner of the print dialog box. You'll see a menu called "PDF" click on the menu, and the first option you'll see is "Save as PDF..."

Click it and be done!

Edit: Missed it by THAT much!
 
oh awesome! everyday's a schoolday, eh?! 😛

thanks for the advice, guys 🙂
 
OSX does create PDFs but does not merge them. I use PDF lab to merge different pages of stuff I have scanned in, for faxing and stuff. It is a pretty good utility.
 
ToddW said:
OSX does create PDFs but does not merge them. I use PDF lab to merge different pages of stuff I have scanned in, for faxing and stuff. It is a pretty good utility.
Click to expand...

As mentioned earlier, it's not hard to throw together an Automator workflow to merge PDFs.
 
mduser63 said:
As mentioned earlier, it's not hard to throw together an Automator workflow to merge PDFs.
Click to expand...

I've tried, without any success. PDFLab and free, and very easy to use. I highly recommend it.
 
One thing I've done in the past to merge PDF files is best described as a clever hack. It works, though - I've only tried it with images. Basically, you open TextEdit, paste the individual pages into the document, then print the result to a PDF. Presto, multi-page PDF.
 
IJ Reilly said:
I've tried, without any success. PDFLab and free, and very easy to use. I highly recommend it.
Click to expand...


Here's a workflow I made for merging. Seems to work well.

Put it in your User > Library > Workflows > Applications > Finder and it'll be contextual in the finder.
 

Attachments

decksnap said:
Here's a workflow I made for merging. Seems to work well.

Put it in your User > Library > Workflows > Applications > Finder and it'll be contextual in the finder.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll give it a try.
 
IJ Reilly said:
I've tried, without any success. PDFLab and free, and very easy to use. I highly recommend it.
Click to expand...

I guess I should have added to my message that I actually don't use Automator for merging PDFs, I use the simple and effective Combine PDFs.
 
Old but great thread.

This has answered two of my PDF on the Mac questions.

Thanks to the original contributors.
 
pdf creator

what if you want to keep embedded quicktimes in your textedit files when you print as pdf's. anyone know a solution for that?

Mike
 
decksnap said:
Here's a workflow I made for merging. Seems to work well.

Put it in your User > Library > Workflows > Applications > Finder and it'll be contextual in the finder.
Click to expand...

Should I be alarmed that this path doesn't exist on my iMac?

I can get to Library but there's no Workflows folder.
 
qt survival

pit29:
what if you want to keep embedded quicktimes in your textedit files when you print as pdf's. do you know a solution for that?

Mike
 
mikelly321 said:
pit29:
what if you want to keep embedded quicktimes in your textedit files when you print as pdf's. do you know a solution for that?

Mike
Click to expand...

Do you want to embed QT movies into PDF files? It can be done using LaTeX -- but that might be a bit of an overkill.
 
pdfs

pit29 said:
Open the PDFs in Preview, show page thumbnails, and then drag-and-drop the thumbnails to merge / rearrange... Easy, :apple:
Click to expand...

I am a new mac convert and find nearly everything better. However, the creation of pdfs has stumped me. I created a word file which included some pages as portrait and some landscape and the pdf creation separated these into different files. Yes, I could drag-and-drop, but surely there is a way of creating one file automatically? Perhaps I need some other software? Any suggestions gratefully received.
 
combine PDF's is probably the best application I have ever used to combine PDF's or even just normal images. I did my own workflow in automator but it muddled up the page numbers and using adobe professional takes too much time!!
 
Hi. I am a new mac convert.. I am having prbs with pdf conversion. when i convert a spreadsheet into pdf, the cells do not merge completely.
Appreciate the help...
 
old thread but helpful for new mac convert..

TextEdit works great as u can attach files, adjust TextEdit window as desired and then save as PDF.

thanks to wrldwzrd89 for the tip :apple:
 
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