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Revealing Hidden PDF Services in Mac OS X 10.2.4
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."
... is it just me, or does OSX frickin' rock or what?
.DLL monkeybusiness? Registry hacking?
... 'something has gone wrong with the USB driver updates'.
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.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20030 214080306398&query=pdf
;-)
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
Really, is it a surprise that Apple continues to survive in the MS-dominated world? Look at the "innovations" from Microsoft - Media Center, DRM, Windows Update (damn, you need IE for that), ... nothing really to make most users say "geez, that IS useful. cool!"
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)
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). 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)
This sig intentionally left bla... dammit!
Who's got the whiteout?
You can give it to all users on the machine by putting it in /Library instead of ~/Library
I have had my Yao laptop for about 3 weeks now, after not having a Mac since system 8 had just come out.
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
Soccer Goal Plans
great idea, almost makes me want to use OSX.
its a good thing we have nautilus scripts
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...
I had to revert to 10.2.3 on account of the modem bug. :( Unfortunate, because that was my only problem with the update. Apple is reportedly fixing this in 10.2.5.
Anyway, This is a cool feature and I will definitely use when Apple fixes 10.2.4's modem bug.
Use the 'net, Luke...
For more info on all sorts of techy Mac OS X stuff, just read www.macosxhints.com, where this hint came from. All free and sensible, with daily updates.
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
it's not about the karma, it's about the whuffie
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.
irb(main):001:0>
Adobe Acrobat. (Remember they have something to do with PDFs.)
Any application I use I simply print to PDF. My company uses ActivePDF 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 populating PDF Forms via Apache. Ah nevermind. I'd rather pay for it.
AppleScript is not secure, it simply is not so frequently exploited.
- Anonymous Coward
This isn't the same thing as setting up Distiller or PDF Writer as a print driver. First off, that sort of capability is built in to the OS and is available from every standard print dialog.
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 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.
mbbac
Hey Everyone..
It is very cool that this feature has been implemented. Does anyone or has anyone developed any cool Apple or Shell scripts, or found applications who secretly support this feature to perform cool things?
Any cool respositories of cool tools and scripts?
There are links to other PDF Workflow discussions here.
I don't want to be a wet blanket but this function, while very cool, lacks the ability to name the outgoing document. It gets the moniker 'print job.pdf' and unless someone can figure out a way via scripting (perhaps to wrap the application?) this is a little non-descriptive. Will be interested to watch the progress though!
I think it's awesome that Apple is always innovating and improving the awesome OS X. The ability to automatically generate PDFs and use different scripts to regulate their behavior is a great testament to Apple's undying commitment to making user's lives easier. Publishing PDfs for on-line useage will probably become more efficient as the user writes more scripts. However, this seems like it would not be very helpful for those involved in offset printing.
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.
Mr. Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time is enemy action.
Perhaps I am misunderstanding what you need, but the FOP project might do the trick. No need to reinvent the wheel, nor pay for it either.
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.
Teach him to eat and he will fish forever.
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*
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
it is a preference panel that includes a Services CMM. Indispensible. http://www.versiontracker.com/moreinfo.fcgi?id=133 81&db=mac
I couldnt agree more. Services are very immature on OSX but will surely evolve into one of those things we just take for granted. The ability to have a nifty little "Applescript convert PDF to text and email that file to _X_" systemwide script always waiting for your command (in a clean GUI manner) is to me amazing . As the Finder and other key apps move to the cocoa enviroment (where services are much more intergrated and shared with negligable extra work on the programmers side) this technology will really take off.
But excuses aside, carbon based programs can now access the Services menu its just a matter of getting developers interested. This is one of the NeXT features that always intruiged me, im glad to see it gaining a little momentum.
---- The real Slashdot is still here. You just have to browse at -1 to read the comments.
Either 'interesting' or 'insightful'...
I would really like to know more about this
Not just Acrobat, you can also get a adware/cheap-shareware version of a PDF "printer driver" at: http://www.pdf995.com/
Not sure why but I need to use shift option to slow down the genie effect. Kind of fun.
I didn't see this in the Apple discussions, and I'm not sure whether this is a bug, but PDF workflows do not work if there is no printer installed in the print dialog. Otherwise, all options (except for the default "Save as PDF...") will cause a print error.
The workaround was to add a printer (regardless if you have one or not). I wonder if anyone has also experienced this problem.
Slightly off-topic, but related...
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.
Check this.
"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)."
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
PDF is the native graphics format in OS X. Every application can print to a PDF file. It's a native feature of the OS; if you can print something to a printer, you can print it to a PDF. If you take a screenshot, its even a pdf (though you can easily convert it to a different bitmap format if you wish).
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.
Go out and get sailing!
Nice generalization. As a "Corp IT exec," I can say that I would love to be on a reliable, secure, easily supportable personal computer environment... *that supports our applications*. Microsoft did a great job of marketing to developers in the early 90's (that's you guys) so now we are limited in our choices. Suggestion: show more developers how to build great end user applications that are platform independent, or multiplatform capable with minimal effort. How: 1. Pure HTML apps with ECMAscript (that javascript standard). Look at Konfabulator as an example. 2. Build java apps that run anywhere (don't use the fancy stuff, just the solid, version-independent simple stuff). 3. Build Fat server/thin client applications that are transportable. Build code that has a transportable GUI across platforms that use a well-designed TCP -based protocol. 4. Spend a little time with IT executives to understand better what problems they are paid to solve, then help them solve them.
You description of how to send PDF email is lame. I tried it and nothing hap[pened after the PDF was created.
My bad. Because it didn't switch to Mail automatically, I didn' t know that a blank email with the PDF attached was waiting there. Amazing!
And even if it did, the OS X print-to-pdf would look better. It might be *bigger*, but there are ways to optimize PDFs.
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
Another option: Stick to plain C, open API's, POSIX where possible.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Nice generalization. As a "Corp IT exec," I can say...
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 and execs do. But I do believe that some part of MS's power derives from people using the instability and obscurity of their systems for personal advantage, and that MS deliberatly enables this.
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. -- A.E.
CLITORIS CHOPPERS. Hi there you fucking Islamic career clerics, doctors of death, Waffen Schutzstaffel doctor Josef Mengele is a patron saint compared to you fucking ragheads. You suck. You aide and abet terror and death. You are partially responsible for the deaths of other fellow men. For this fratricide you shall pay dearly. Your soul is black with the stains of inaction, ineptitude and sympathies to those who walk the dark side. Your foul life is full of sins, not religious, just heinous, your karma is low, you don't confess, and you aren't in prison where you belong. You are your own dark, kept secret. I see through you, the worthless academic, the pseudo intellectual, the unproven unpublished un patented WASTE OF FUCKING FLESH. You are a drain on society, you are a member of the 1st world but pretend to not be. I hate you, you are a stained man.
Hi clitoris chopper, you islamists support clitoris carving. You are Islamic, and of course are a fucking animal. I hate you you pull-start camel jockey lover. Towelheads, Camel Jockies, Sand Niggers, Ackmids, Abeebs, Carpet Flyers, Dune Coons, Rag Heads, Sand Scratchers, Habeebs, Abba-Dabbas, Camel-Humpers, Demi-niggers, Fig-Gobblers, Hucka-luckas (hucka hlacka ghalcka ghugh), Lefties (If you steal, you lose the right hand so, since they are thieves...) Ocnods, Pull-Start-ables (imagine pull starting Ossama's dirty rag like a Briggs and Stratton), Roach-Ranchers (habibs cant kill roaches by a tenant of Is-slum), Sand Moolies.
Shut up all you dirty fucking Islamic pigfucking swinehundts and the pigs, the communist fuckin Islamic terrorist supporter.
Take your fucking Koran and cram it up your ass. The sooner the earth sees Islam leave it, the better off it will be. Your Koran is Goat Piss.
I hope if there is a God and a Hell, you have to drink the liquidy shit from a Pig's ass, and Jewish Rabbis defecate on you.
I hate the stupid ISLAM fucks who read into the trash they come up with. Saddam Hussein [who needs to take a dirt nap] is higher on my sanity list than fucking Muslim "clerics." In fact, I like Saddam more than most of the other Arab leaders because he is secular. We should fucking nuke the Saudis and Mecca and Medina and turn it into rubble, then tell Saddam to remove the heads of all the buttfucking "royalty" in the area.
I want to wipe my ass with Mohammad's shroud. I want to grind his body up into bone meal and fertilize my garden with it.
Our tortured dead scream out in HORROR, asking for vengeance:
Nuke their countries to hell.
Nuke them again.
Death to Islam.
I piss on Mecca. I wipe my ass with the Koran. I shit upon Mohammed. I wipe the cum for a freshly fucked pussy with Mohammed's shroud then throw it in the pig sty so it can mire in pig shit as it decomposes.