Computing & Information Services
Creating a PDF File
You've probably downloaded PDFs of articles or user manuals. PDF is a file format which preserves your document's layout no matter what platform it is viewed on. It can be read by anyone who has Adobe Acrobat or OS X's Preview installed. If you are concerned about preserving your document's layout, saving it as a PDF file may be the most effective means to ensure that it looks the same no matter what machine it is viewed on.
Pick a platform:
Making PDFs Using Macintosh OS X
- While in a native OS X application, go to Print...
- At the bottom left of the Print... dialog, select PDF from among the file formats listed.
- Save the file in a location of your choice in PDF format.
Making PDFs in Mac OS 9
In order to make a PDF in Mac OS 9, you need Distiller. Distiller is available on the Academic Software server. It is in the Text and Layout Folder, nested inside the Adobe PageMaker folder. Drag the Distiller folder to your desktop. DO NOT RUN PROGRAMS OFF THE SERVER! Distiller is a keyed program, so you'll need to make sure that you have KeyAccess installed.
If your document is a SimpleText document, then you can just open up Distiller, then go to File, then Open... and open your document that way. Distiller will ask you where you want to save the document, as a PDF.
- While your document window is open, go to Print...
- Click and hold on the popup menu that says General and select Save as File.
- Find the Format popup menu (it probably says 'Postscript Job' now) and select Acrobat PDF.
- Select File from the Destination popup menu (which probably says 'Printer' now).
- Click the boxes marked "Enable all Fonts" and "Make Font Subsets".
- Click Save and find a good place for your file.
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Creating PDFs in Windows
No version of Windows as of 2006 has the ability to create PDFs natively, however, limited solutions exist. You may use Adobe's online PDF creation service (5-day trial available), or download a program such as PDF Creator or PrimoPDF, which install drivers that allow you to print a file to PDF format.
Once installed, these programs will list a new printer in the print selection dialog (see Figure) which will write your document in PDF format.
Using PDFs
The following are tips and tricks for use in Adobe Acrobat/Reader:
- To select text, go up to the top of the toolbar and activate text select mode
. - Similarly, the Image Select button allows you to select images
. - You can view a list of pages in the PDF by toggling the Pages tab, located on the extreme left hand side of the window.
- There are three ways to scroll through an article: Single page (when you reach the end of page one, the top of page two jumps to the top of the window), Continuous (what it sounds like), and Continuous Facing (smoother scrolling and with two pages side by side). Try them all and decide which you like best.
- You can search the document for a word by clicking on the button with the binoculars.
- If you can't see some of these toolbar buttons, click the Windows menu and go to Toolbars. Make sure that Basic Tools, File, and Navigation are checked.