[Macworld]

Post your comments for CUPS-PDF 2.4.6.1 here

[flybynight]

Wow, that's like the good ol' days when you could have a print-to-file printer. Of course it was to a .ps file back then, but still... Cool!

[CVBruce]

Will the print driver retain links? If I print a web page, will the pdf file created have clickable links in it?

[sporks]

To be slightly off-topic and just because you tweaked one of my pet peeves.
Paper is made from saplings and cotton, both of which are highly renewable resources. To say you are cutting back on paper to save trees is like saying you are cutting back on bread to save wheat.

[kennethfcooper]

sporks,

<off topic>If you like, "cutting back on paper to save trees" then try searching on the phrase, "Save water for future generations" (include the quotes). You will get over one thousand hits. The glass of water you don't drink today will be available to your great-grandson.

Not that you should waste water, but this is a issue for today, not a issue that can be passed down to future generations. Each generation can decide how to spend the water that is allocated to them. We are not going to empty the oceans or skies, no matter how much water we use. </off topic>

[nickinvictoria]

Sporks: This posting is coming from Canada a large producer of paper and I can tell you the amount of bleach and devastation to the local environment makes your point hard to understand.
Please if you can "save" energy, paper, or what ever.... do it!

[HandyMac]

Hemp both makes better paper, and is more easily renewable than trees. Which is the primary reason (among several) it was made illegal in the 1930s, at the behest of the timber industry, which didn't like the competition. Isn't government wonderful?

And thanks for the tip, Dan; I make a lot of PDFs too, and this looks to be very useful.

[nickinvictoria]

Yes you are right but I believe the real reason hemp is not allowed is because of its strength. Cotton would end up like silk, as hemp makes better jeans, shirts anything that needs a durability component. The strands from hemp are long and strong like bamboo......

Any how we are way off topic and printing in Mac sucks sometimes. This PDF tip helps and maybe someone could modify the print panel so I can only print the selected section and hitting the keys Apple + shift P creates a pdf of either the selection or the page!!!!

[vinnie_A]

I use Adobe CS4 and Acrobat Pro and apparently, this installs an "Adobe PDF" print driver which appears in the print dialog. No further installations needed. Just select the Adobe PDF as the printer and then use the "Save as" dialog to save where desired.

[Schneb]

Back to CUPS ;)
Is there any way to set its settings to have a low-filesize output?

[bonesb]

Hey, Dan, maybe it's not the slick-as-snot approach you're looking for, but I have a tip to offer...
Using the "Keyboard & Mouse>Keyboard Shortcuts" Preference Pane, and using the "Applications Keyboard Shortcuts" section, under "All Applications", I created a shortcut for "Save as PDF..." exactly as it appears in the pulldown menu, then logged out and back in.
I use the the "Command-Option-P" keyboard combination and now only press "Command-P" wait about 1-2 seconds, and then just move to hold down the Option key while pressing the other two (Command-P) to complete my custom keyboard command, and the "Save as PDF" dialog presents itself and I'm good to go. If I want other options from the Print dialog I just deal with it. It saves me tons of mousing around every week!
All of those commands in that pull down can be assigned a shortcut, and it's systemwide!
I did the same thing with the "Window>Zoom" Command (Control-Z) and I can zoom most windowing, except for the iWork suite (go figure?) and the MS Office apps (which are just brain dead for windowing anyway).

[TheBum]

I use this to back up some DRMed documents that allow printing but disable OS X's "Save as PDF..." capability.

[Dan Frakes]

CVBruce said:

Will the print driver retain links? If I print a web page, will the pdf file created have clickable links in it?

Unfortunately, no.

[Dan Frakes]

bonesb said:

Hey, Dan, maybe it's not the slick-as-snot approach you're looking for, but I have a tip to offer...

Using the "Keyboard & Mouse>Keyboard Shortcuts" Preference Pane, and using the "Applications Keyboard Shortcuts" section, under "All Applications", I created a shortcut for "Save as PDF..." exactly as it appears in the pulldown menu, then logged out and back in.

I use the the "Command-Option-P" keyboard combination and now only press "Command-P" wait about 1-2 seconds, and then just move to hold down the Option key while pressing the other two (Command-P) to complete my custom keyboard command, and the "Save as PDF" dialog presents itself and I'm good to go. If I want other options from the Print dialog I just deal with it. It saves me tons of mousing around every week!

All of those commands in that pull down can be assigned a shortcut, and it's systemwide!

I've tried that approach, but as Rob detailed over on OS X Hints, the problem is that when you assign keyboard shortcuts to items in the PDF pop-up menu, they don't always work. If I recall the bug correctly, you have to make sure to actually click on the menu at some point, to show it, before any shortcuts will work. (And sometimes even then it doesn't "take.")