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How do I print to a PDF file in Mac OS X?

A friend told me that on the Mac anything that I could send to a printer could also be easily saved as a PDF file on my computer, to examine or even print later. I have no clue how to do that, but it'd sure be useful. How do you print to a PDF on a Mac?

Dave's Answer:

This is a common question and highlights a feature of Mac OS X that's well worth knowing, a feature that in my eyes, at least, is one of the best capabilities of the Mac system. After all, without the print-to-pdf feature, you'd end up having to use a commercial PDF rendering application like Adobe Acrobat, which is pretty expensive and would significantly impact your capabilities too.

Fortunately, it's pretty darn easy to print to a PDF with just what's built in to Leopard or Panther (different versions of Mac OS X).

For example, I'll convert a Web page into a PDF file by opening up the page in Safari, then choosing File --> Print.... This brings up the following dialog window:

Notice the button labelled "PDF" on the lower left. That's the target, so click it. Now you'll see this:

As you can see, there are quite a few choices in terms of how the printer program formats and renders the page you seek to print, but I always just choose Save As PDF.... Now you'll get yet another dialog box:

You can probably leave this all untouched, but I would suggest you rename the "save as" to have a name that you find mnemonic, not algorithmically scraped from another page. :-)

Once you've done that, click on "Save" and a few seconds later you'll have a PDF file that is the rendering of the page or document you were viewing!

Update: if you want to accomplish this same result in Windows, there are a number of choices available. I suggest that you check out PDF to DOC Converter Pro.

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Categorized: Mac OS X Help (Article 7823)
Tagged: mac, pdf, printing
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Comments

I agree Dave, this feature is well worth the software price!! I have used this feature for a very long time and don't think I could live without it. So many things I do rely on PDF's and to simply print as a pdf works excellent! I used to export as PDF files but depending on what you were exporting, it wouldn't always work. This works flawlessly.

Also, I noticed my wife had a PDF file she printed from Acrobat Reader (on both Mac and PC) and all photos print in red. I open the pdf in preview and it prints perfect. That's a mac for you!

Posted by: Jerid Hill at January 9, 2008 11:03 AM

Another, even easier way to do this is to install SafariStand http://hetima.com/safari/stand-e.html - which then enables a right-click menu item in Safari entitled Export to PDF...

Posted by: Wes Miller at January 18, 2008 9:47 AM

When I do this and open the file in Adobe Reader, it appears that "Commenting" is not allowed. I would very much like to be able to highlight some documents (like I would be able to do if I printed to paper). Is there a way to do this?

Posted by: Joey at October 29, 2009 2:44 PM

Yes, I can find the pdf button but the problem is, my Mac OS only prints the first page. How can I get the whole 3 pages to print????!!!

Posted by: susan at March 3, 2010 4:23 PM

Same problem as Susan. I have Adobe Professional installed, so I also have "Save as Adobe PDF" in my menu, and I get the same problem regardless of which PDF creation option I use. I print a long web page "to PDF" but only the first page saves. Very frustrating.....

Posted by: Mark at March 9, 2010 10:32 PM

I have a pdf syllabus that is 368 pages long. I want to save selected chapters. Adobe Acrobat does not allow that. I can print them, but not save them as a pdf. Any suggestions?

Posted by: Julie at March 17, 2010 3:44 PM

I have something to say, now that you mention it, but ...

I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you for all your efforts on this Web site by buying you a cup of coffee!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!