[maceye]

I noticed a while ago that you can make a PDF out of any document in OS X by choosing Print and then checking off the 'save as PDF' file. What kind of quality are these files? Specifically, do I still need Acrobat (full, not reader)? I don''t use PDFs for any prepress work ever, so I am not sure if I need Acrobat anymore. It was critical in OS 9.

[yoyo52]

The quality is pretty good, I think. In fact, I've set the file preferences so that all .pdf files end up being saved as Acrobat files rather than as Preview files, which I think is the default option--and you really can't tell the difference between "real" and "saved-to-pdf" files. Once you've saved the file to PDF, you can't edit it unless you have Acrobat, though.

[overbyj]

Sorry to sound ignorant, but how do you set the file preferences to save the PDF's as Acrobat files rather than Preview?

[nickm]

The quality is pretty good, I think. In fact, I've set the file preferences so that all .pdf files end up being saved as Acrobat files rather than as Preview files.

PDF files are just PDF files. When they are saved they don't have an application associated with them other than what you choose. It is possible to change your default application for opening PDF files to Acrobat, but this doesn't mean the files themselves change.

Generally, the PDF files produced by Quartz are good in that the embed the fonts (which I feel is 90% of being a good PDF) and they preserve as much of the vector components as possible. However, I've found the PDFs to be unnecessarily large at times; For example, I have to make PDF of Powerpoint lecture slides for a class I'm TAing. If I do it in MacOS X, the resulting PDF is 1.2 MB in size. If I make the PDF using Acrobat Distiller on Windows, it is around 300kb. So, I use the Windows solution to keep the size down.

[bluedog]

Originally posted by nickm:
<STRONG>Generally, the PDF files produced by Quartz are good in that the embed the fonts (which I feel is 90% of being a good PDF) and they preserve as much of the vector components as possible. However, I've found the PDFs to be unnecessarily large at times; For example, I have to make PDF of Powerpoint lecture slides for a class I'm TAing. If I do it in MacOS X, the resulting PDF is 1.2 MB in size. If I make the PDF using Acrobat Distiller on Windows, it is around 300kb. So, I use the Windows solution to keep the size down.</STRONG>

Why not use Adobe Acrobat and Distill them on the MAC!?! That way you don't need to muck with a PC!

[moki]

Originally posted by maceye:
<STRONG>I noticed a while ago that you can make a PDF out of any document in OS X by choosing Print and then checking off the 'save as PDF' file. What kind of quality are these files? Specifically, do I still need Acrobat (full, not reader)? I don''t use PDFs for any prepress work ever, so I am not sure if I need Acrobat anymore. It was critical in OS 9.</STRONG>

The main reason to use Acrobat is you can set up a Table of Contents, and other nicities. It all depends on what you are doing with the PDFs -- if you are making documentation, then a table of contents, index, etc. are fairly important, and thus you'd want an extended tool like Acrobat.

[yoyo52]

You can tell your computer what application will open files with particular extensions simply by opening the information window on a single file and in the pop up menu at the top going to the Open with Application option. Change the application to whatever you want, and then if you want all similar files to be opened with that application, click the change all button.

Out of the box, X saves the print-to-pdf output as a Preview file, with a Preview icon. If you tell the computer that all files with .pdf extensions are to be opened by Acrobat, then the files will be saved as Acrobat files. I suppose that the Preview files are cross-platform accessible, but I'm sure that the Acrobat ones are.[/LIST]