Revealing Hidden PDF Services in Mac OS X 10.2.4 90
cspiff writes "In Mac OS X 10.2.4, Apple quietly added the ability for users and developers to enhance the standard Print dialog with custom PDF-handling options. To enable it, just create a folder '~/Library/PDF Services' and populate it with aliases to applications, scripts, Unix tools, or other folders. Those items then show up in the Print dialog as optional handlers for Mac OS X's built-in 'Save as PDF' feature. Drop a renamed alias to your mail client in there, and you've added convenient 'Send PDF as Email' functionality to every application."
Holy smokin' joes... (Score:5, Interesting)
What would you have to do to do something like this in Windows land? Some sort of
Man, am I ever glad I switched. Friend of mine just came to my office to report yet *another* full re-install of WinXP is required on his test machine because
Can he figure it out? No. Is he stupid? No. Does Microsoft suck at designing OS's that make sense? Yes.
Re:Holy smokin' joes... (Score:2, Interesting)
I updated 3 machines (BW G3, Pismo, iBook) to 10.2.4. Two went fine, the iBook gray screened at the OF prompt and I had to reload and reupdate the bitch from scratch, which took 4 hours. I was not feeling the Mac love on that one. And the XP box I use at work has be
Re:Holy smokin' joes... (Score:2)
I do like being able to have 30+ day uptimes, though. =)
Re:Holy smokin' joes... (Score:1)
I've invested in every single generation of PC since the 8088 days. I've only recently decided to go Mac-only on the personal level, though I do still maintain plenty of servers.
I'm completely multi-platform friendly, having owned SGI boxes, Sun, PC's, Wang, you name it. I don't care, at this point, about anything but stability and predictability in operational status.
Something you just don't get with Microsoft: predictability in operational status and procedure.
Cheap crack i
Re:Holy smokin' joes... (Score:5, Funny)
does a corporate IT exec want a platform that makes his department large and indispensible? yes. does MS know its market? yes.
Re:Corp IT exec wants... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Corp IT exec wants... (Score:1)
Re:Corp IT exec wants... (Score:2)
My apologies, that comment was offhand and poorly stated. By "corporate IT exec" I really meant someone who is resonsible for systems maintenance, rather than system development, and the phrase I chose didn't say that. Of course, even perfect clarity would have left me insulting many a consciencious manager.
My comment was really meant as a joke, and a comment on corporate politics and empire-building, rather than the real work that IT departments a
Re:Holy smokin' joes... (Score:1)
Re:Holy smokin' joes... (Score:2, Funny)
1. Sweep Dell off desk onto floor.
2. Call Apple.
3. Order Powerbook.
Re:Holy smokin' joes... (Score:1)
Re:Holy smokin' joes... (Score:1)
But the equpiment did not work as advertized and it took too much time - time = money to try and address it.
Re:Holy smokin' joes... (Score:2)
You've got excellent PDF support on any general purpose Linux distro.
I can't figure out exactly why you'd want a "PDF and Email" option. I mean, I'm sure that there are a few people that might want this, but it seems that it's not that common of an application.
Re:Holy smokin' joes... (Score:2)
It beats "attach Word/Excel/[other proprietary format]", which is far too common now. (Of course, even better would be "paste plain text into email", which would do the job 99% of the time, but his lets people send decorative messages without viruses/missing fonts/text reflow.
more info on (Score:4, Informative)
OS X makes many things comfortable. Could not believe a 9 times reboot to update win2000 to the latest service packs and progs. But furtunately I am running in only for testing reasons in virtual pc so my work does not stop during rebooting in a OS X window
Re:more info on (Score:2)
Huh? I just installed SP2 on a win2k laptop. It asked me to reboot once. I don't know where you got the 9 times from, but that is not my experience. Not even in the days of NT4
Please, if you want to say that MacOSX is better than Windows, say so on its merits not by inventing problems with Windows.
Re:more info on (Score:1)
The problem was, that it had to install several updates _seperately_ which is insane, because I had to reboot after each one. Try it yourself.
I am not inventing problems with windows, but I find it annoying that it always gives you the attitude that its (=the computer's, window's) time is more important than a human being's time!
Two different approaches (Score:5, Interesting)
Now look at Apple - "you mean I can now automatically do basically anything with this PDF I'm about to print? Damn, that sounds really useful. I'll be able to get this done way quicker and have more time for X" (see here [akamai.net])
BTW, MS has VBA, which can be used to do all sorts of shit on your PC, like Outlook viruses, Word viruses, etc, but Apple's AppleScript seems to be relatively secure whilst still providing enough functionality (see the bottom of this [apple.com]). Although perhaps it's because Apple's marketshare isn't seen as big enough for virus-writers to really take notice - I don't know.
Okay, that's not exactly a rock-solid proof, but I think it does illustrate the orthogonal directions Apple and MS seem to be taking - MS wants more and more control of what you do with your computer (eg, WM8 or 9 or whatever they're up to), while Apple introduces features like the aforementioned that are actually somewhat useful. They also make changes when their users whinge (eg, some of the stuff they put in Jaguar to satisfy old-skool Mac fans).
Perhaps this is just part of Apple and Steve Jobs being 'cool', but it sure makes sense in the OS industry. I'm almost at the stage where I'd consider going MacOSX (with X11) when I next upgrade (at least a year from now, though)
Actually you can do this in Windows. It's called.. (Score:1)
Any application I use I simply print to PDF. My company uses ActivePDF [activepdf.com] to populate forms for our clients. As soon as I can do this in Linux or OS X (preferably Linux) for free I'll switch. Till then it's crappy IIS and Active PDF.
I hate Windows and all but everything is released for Windows. Where Mac and Linux usually have to wait to see if something is coming to their platform (if ever).
I guess it's time to start my own OSS project for popul
Re:Actually you can do this in Windows. It's calle (Score:5, Informative)
Secondly, this allows you to write AppleScripts, Perl scripts, target folders, target applications to post-process the PDF once it is created.
Follow the links in the post or this one [apple.com] and you'll see that it is quite extensive.
Secondly, you know how some applications in Windows have "Send Link By Email" commands under the File menu? Well, on OS X that is a system wide function. All an application has to to is consume services in order to be able to use them (and all but legacy applications do). Any application can also produce services.
Re:Actually you can do this in Windows. It's calle (Score:2)
Re:Actually you can do this in Windows. It's calle (Score:2)
It cannot convert an arbitary file (say a word doc) to a PDF document. There are alternative PDF printer drivers now available for the PC.
Re:Actually you can do this in Windows. It's calle (Score:2)
Re:Actually you can do this in Windows. It's calle (Score:1)
AppleScript (Score:1, Insightful)
- Anonymous Coward
Re:Two different approaches (Score:2)
It's mostly about market share. In OS 9 you pretty much were limited to conventional trojans because you can't really conceal the fa
Or give it to all users (Score:1)
Re:Or give it to all users (Score:2, Interesting)
Okay, I'm an idiot. It only works if there is a ~/Library/PDF Services.
BUT - If you have it in both places, you see double entries in the print dialog. I guess this is probably one of the reasons it isn't documented yet.
Re:Or give it to all users (Score:5, Informative)
It only works if there is a ~/Library/PDF Services.
that seems to be true, contrary to the apple doc.
however, while you do have to create the folder, you don't have to put anything in it. if you want all users to see all pdf services, put the stuff in the shared folder, and leave the user's empty.
Apple gets it... (Score:4, Interesting)
While I think it has some neat features, other people around me are dumbfounded that I can print anything into PDF. PDF -> Mail is something that QuickBooks/Mac has been missing. Not that I use that feature of Quickbooks, but maybe that is something they left out knowing this was coming.
Does anyone have an sites where I can find scripts that do these things?
BTW - I entertained people in meeting for about 5 minutes yesterday with my "YaoBook"...taking requests to minimize and maximize windows, just so they could watch the gennie effect into and out of the dock. Wow. Apple really hit the marketing bullseye with that otherwise useless feature.
-Pete
do those things (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Apple gets it... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Apple gets it... (Score:3, Interesting)
This may be a slight bit off the main topic, but you can slow down the genie effect by shift-clicking the yellow minimize button. This is very annoying for all-the-time use, but it impresses the hell out of non-mac peop
Re:Apple gets it... (Score:2)
Re:Apple gets it... (Score:1)
I still go linux (Score:1)
its a good thing we have nautilus scripts [sourceforge.net]
One strange thing (Score:2)
Anyhow, while this trick is cool (I use it to mail pdf files in one move) I hope we will soon have free tools that are equivalent to the classic Unix stuff for postscripts: putting multiple pages on one page, reordering pages, etc...
Re:One strange thing (Score:4, Informative)
Create both "/Library/PDF Services" and "~/Library/PDF Services". Populate "/Library/PDF Services" with whatever you like. Those items should now appear in all users' Print dialogs.
It seems that you need the folder at the user level to get this to work.
-/-
Re:One strange thing (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:One strange thing (Score:2)
Wish I could run 10.2.4... (Score:1)
Re:Wish I could run 10.2.4... (Score:2, Informative)
visit the site! (Score:5, Informative)
Current stories include:
Hiding information from nmap
Accessing the 6BONE with OS X 10.2
Automate screen captures via Grab and GUI Scripting
Large image previews in column view
Hear new Mail messages announced by customized voices
Network proxies and internet access via AirPort
Cocktail - A collection of mini-utilties in one app
Restore Aqua look and feel in NetBeans 3.4 with Java 1.4.1
Temporarily silence the startup sound
Another USB to network printer conversion
Re:visit the site! (Score:3)
Re:visit the site! (Score:1)
Re:visit the site! (Score:2)
Just to go with my personal pet peeve, I have yet to ever encounter a good reason for an average OSX user to enable the root account, nevermind log in and noodle around as root. Not when sudo is available. And yet a large fraction of the tips given go something like:
Services (Score:5, Informative)
People might want to check out the Services menu as well (it's a submenu of the application menu). It contains services offered by other applications that any application can take advantage of. Among other things, it includes a menu item to send the current document in an email.
I think the Services menu is one of the most underrated and underutilized features in Mac OS X.
Re:Services (Score:2)
Re:Services (Score:1)
Anyway, the Services menu is the shit. Mine has like 30 entries. Translation, anybody (or ROT13)? Text to speech of a long article while I'm cooking?
I can only imagine how badly Microsoft will fuck this concept up once they
Re:Services (Score:1)
Re:Services (Score:1)
Re:Services (Score:2)
Re:Services (Score:1)
I agree, but it can be quite cumbersome to navigate. Also, it'd be great if you could access it from the contextual menus. Anyone know how to add this?
try out ICeCoffEE (Score:2, Informative)
Re:try out ICeCoffEE (Score:1)
Wait for the Cocoa apps to come rolling in (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cool Tools to use with PDF Services!? (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.stone.com
http://www.stone.com/tutorials/PDF_Workflow_w_P
More PDF Workflow Coverage (Score:1, Informative)
seems a little early for primetime (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:seems a little early for primetime (Score:2)
i just did a quick test, sending a pdf from TextEdit to a folder by selecting a pdf service. the document was "Untitled 4", and the file created was "Untitled 4.pdf". perhaps there are other application/service combos that have a naming problem.
Re:seems a little early for primetime (Score:5, Informative)
I have written an AppleScript which saves the current page into my ~/Documents/Recipts folder. One of the things it does is prompt you to name the PDF before it is saved into the receipts folder.
Great for on-line, not so for offset printing. (Score:4, Interesting)
At most pre-press shops around the world, PDFs are becoming integrated into the workflow more and more. But most prfessional design programs already have their own print dialogs and methods for exporting PDFs. Take Adobe InDesign, for instance. I can already export a PDF from the File menu (though I cannot see how to regulate it with all those cool Applescripts). And why would I want to do that anyway? If I send anything to a pre-press dept. at a print shop, it will most likely be a fully separated PDF, or (in most cases) a Postscript file. Many pre-press shops cannot deal with composite PDFs yet. A lot of them are not equipped with a fully PDF workflow. That would make trapping and imposition from a composite PDF quite difficult.
Other software titles that professionals use like Quark, PageMaker, etc. already have their own print dialogs. A high-res PDF of a four-color print job would be too large to attach to most e-mails anyway.
I like the idea for every other usage. This new option is great for titles like Word which use the Apple print dialog. This can have many advantages. Students will most likely benefit from this as they will be able to publish their PDFs on-line to professors and teachers.
Re:Great for on-line, not so for offset printing. (Score:3, Interesting)
If so, write the script, throw it in the directory, and any application can produce those PDFs nice and easy-like.
I, personally, don't do anything with PDFs so regularly as to need this feature. I would imagine that folks with established graphics workflows (such as yourself) would be the ones to benefit from this sort of thing. Maybe I'm wrong.
Re:Great for on-line, not so for offset printing. (Score:1)
Wonder if this is a pot-shot at Distiller? (Score:5, Interesting)
Prepress designers know that the Quark/Distiller combo is basically how you get stuff done, for the most part, in recent years. However, Quark is muchos late with their application, and Adobe has yet to mention Distiller for OS X, even though they've ported pretty much everything else.
The rumour mill has it that Adobe is holding back - or possibly has cancelled - Distiller for OS X, just to give InDesign a shot in the arm (which has Distiller-like capabilities built in of course).
Also, it's possible that Adobe is still miffed by any of the following:
- the knifing of Adobe Premiere by Final Cut
- the competition for photo-management via iPhoto (notice no Adobe Album for OS X. Too bad, looks nice.)
- the non-licensing of Display PostScript for OS X (which I believe has been nothing but a good decision for Apple; Quartz is a milestone in 2D graphics display systems, and has many advantages over old-school DP, not the least of which is support for true transparency)
Makes you wonder if Apple is stepping up yet again to fill the void *cough*safari*cough*
Re:Wonder if this is a pot-shot at Distiller? (Score:3, Informative)
> the non-licensing of Display PostScript for OS X
Adobe backed out of their promise to provide (first a free, then a low-cost) DPS license for Apple---this is why Apple did away with ``Yellow Box'' and came up with their Mac OS X strategy.
Adobe also had a history of yanking the chains of people who'd bought DPS licenses---like resolution limiting it to less than 800dpi when NeXTstep 3 came out.
For a decent alternative to Distiller for most purposes, look at Frank Siegert's spiffy pS
Re:Wonder if this is a pot-shot at Distiller? (Score:1)
Could somebody puh-leeze ask the rumor mill what the heck Distiller is doing in my recently installed OS X Acrobat 5.05 directory?
Ask and you shall receive. (Score:2)
Check this. [adobe.com]
"Using Adobe Acrobat 5.0.5 and Acrobat Reader 5.0.5 and Mac OS X v.10.2
Adobe Acrobat 5.0.5 and Acrobat Reader 5.0.5 offer native mode support for Mac OS X v.10.04, 10.1, and 10.2 (Acrobat Distiller® still runs in Classic mode)."
Re:Ask and you shall receive. (Score:1)
Re:Ask and you shall receive. (Score:1)
No printer selected bug? (Score:3, Informative)
The workaround was to add a printer (regardless if you have one or not). I wonder if anyone has also experienced this problem.
AquaTerm: C program drawing to PDF (Score:1)
If you're interested in drawing PDFs from code, a nice OS X application is AquaTerm (http://aquaterm.sourceforge.net/). It has C bindings, so you can write a C program to create lines & text. AquaTerm displays the lines & text and allows you to display & print (to PDF) the results.