Use Your Mac To Create Booklet Sized PDFs. Free.

It would not be a Friday if we couldn’t come up with another nifty utility for your Mac, right? Friday Freebie is here for a reason.

You know that OS X does PDF documents, both printing and reading. Add a handy utility to print booklets in PDF format.

Big whoop, right? Surprisingly, many Mac users don’t know that Mac OS X also saves documents as PDF files. It’s easy, but there are limitations.

Click on the File menu in Safari. Then select Print at the bottom of the menu. What you get is the standard printer dialog box with the Down arrow and Print button. What’s so special about that?

Options. Click on the Down arrow and a bunch of printing options show up. Click and hold the PDF button and even more options show up.

These options can be a perfect way to create PDF documents in OS X. Open PDF in Preview, OS X’s PDF document reader. Save the document as a PDF file. Even mail a PDF document or save it to iPhoto.

These are handy little options that most Mac users don’t know. But there’s more.

Mac OS X has a component called Services, which Mac applications can use to provide additional functionality.

One such Service is Create Booklet PDF Service.

If you want the standard sized booklet with room for staples down the middle, OS X’s built in printing function becomes a big pain. But not with Create Booklet PDF Service installed.

Pages are resorted and two pages are squished to become one page, which can be selected from the Print dialog box. All you need to do is get ready to print, but use the new export command instead. Life is good.

Many Mac software developers create such handy tools that extend beyond the capability built in to OS X. The Create Booklet PDF Service developer has other tools you’ll find handy, especially if you love to dink around with iTunes.

Did I mention that it’s free? Hey, it’s Friday. That’s how God intended the day to be-- full of nifty Mac utilities that cost less and are more filling.

Got a handy and free utility that gives you warm and fuzzies? Share with other Mac users in the Comments section below.
This handy Service adds an export command to the Print menu which converts documents into PDF format. Big whoop, again, right? OS X already does that. Except OS X’s conversion and print capability does not include booklets, which is the whole idea behind Create Booklet PDF Service.

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