arya [at] posterous

when I'm exhilarated and mobile

Preview: Print multi-pages per sheet

Most of my work's deliverables must be sent to my colleagues by email. Nevertheless, occasionally I have to print them out and make sure that every little thing is in place. Typo errors are something that I really dislike, especially when the report must go to board. 

In this case, I usually print them out in layout mode, print multi pages into single sheet. It reduces paper usage and easier to handle. But, it's been awhile since I did not know how to do that simple thing using Preview. I stuck with one page per sheet option, which leads me to complain on how Preview handle this matter. Even worse, I did not try to, at least googling, find solution on this matter. 

Actually, the feature is already there, inside the Preview. All you have to do is select Layout option from the drop-down menu just below the Orientation. There you can select whatever number of page per sheet as you like.

Preview's geotag

LOL. I didn't know until today. 

I downloaded a tempting picture of Huevos Rancheros over Sachin's Posterous at Brunch at Just For You and preview it inside Apple's Preview. Eager to know what camera he used to take the picture, I accidentally found that Preview can handle geotag, giving you the global information on location where the picture has been taken. And the best part is when you click on the "Locate" button it goes directly to Google Maps. 

These pictures show you the Just For You location as Sachin mentioned under his post.

Well, it's time to do some experiments using my BlackBerry's geotagging feature.

Preview: PDF Editor

Part of this post was originally published in my WordPress.com and somehow the Y08 Annual Report bring me back to the old case due to working on several OS platform and several Applications simultaneously. So, I think, I better re-publish (with little modification) this post.

For over the past 16 months, I've been aware and quite impressed by the simple yet powerful features of Preview under Mac OS X 10.5, Leopard. In my case, I've been using Preview as a PDF Editor. This feature has saved me lots of time due to cross platform compatibility. Recently, when preparing the Annual Report for the company, I found that several documents were generated, either by me or by my staffs, using three different Application: Pages of iWork, Word of Microsoft, and Excel of Microsoft which thenafter should be compiled and published under one single document in PDF format. There are also some edited and cropped images and graphics from another final report in which, unfortunately, my staffs do not have the "raw" format in doc or pages.

Voila! I found that Preview can handle all my problem instantly. All you have to do is prepare the PDF for all documents - and the rest shall be taken care by Preview.

  1. Crop and save an image in PDF. Preview's image editing feature can do this trick easily. To crop an image from a PDF document click Select button in the toolbar, click and drag to create rectangle around the image you want to crop, then select Tools > Crop or press Command+K. Save As into format you like.
  2. Merge PDFs file or move pages from single file to another. It is amazing to have this feature in your hand. Usually, I used to combine several document (e.g. three report with different format which I have to combine into single document) by copy paste into one single document and then create one PDF file from this document. Now, I can just combine them after all report finish. The best thing is I don't need to adjust any formating in the document - Hey, it's already a PDF, ready to be distributed. I just need to combine them and re-arrange the page or adjust the orientation. To merge PDFs file or append any pages from one file to another you have to open both file you want to merge. Make sure the sidebar is visible. Drag one page (or all pages) from one document's sidebar to another, and drop it/them in the appropriate location. Done, piece of cake!
  3. Delete or re-arrange pages in PDF and insert Blank Page. You may find that you want to delete certain page or pages in a document. Just press Command+delete on the selected page in sidebar. Again, make sure sidebar is visible. To move page/pages, select the page in sidebar, drag and drop into the desire location. The best thing about editing the PDF using Preview is you can even add Blank Page in the document wherever you like. This will come handy when you have to create a report with transition page on each chapter. Select, in the side bar, the page after where you want to add the Blank Page, choose Edit > Insert Blank Page.

The very best thing about having Preview as an Image Editor or as a PDF Editor is it's already included in Leopard, no additional cost is required.