Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Tip 153
Shrink PDF Files
All applications capable of editing documents or pictures on a Mac can output
files as PDFs. To do so, just click File→Print on the menu of the application,
and click the PDF drop-down at the bottom left. Then select Save as PDF,
and enter a filename as usual (be sure to add a
.PDF
file extension if you want
the file to be read on computers other than Macs).
However, PDFs created by Macs tend to be large. The solution is simple: repeat
the previous steps to output a PDF, but choose the Open PDF in Preview
option from the PDF drop-down list. Then, when the Preview window appears,
click File→Export. In the Save As dialog box, click Reduce File Size in the
Quartz Filter drop-down list.
Note that shrinking PDFs in this way will also reduce the quality of the images
slightly.
This technique can also be used to shrink large PDF files you might have
received by email. Just open then in Preview, export them, and choose the
Shrink option. However, if the PDF contains sophisticated functions such as
security features, it may lose these functions in the shrinking procedure.
Tip 154
Turn On Key Repeat
With recent releases of OS X, Apple made a break from years of computing
development. As just one example, Apple deactivated key repeat in favor of a
This technique of inserting foreign or accented characters works only in a
handful of applications, including built-in Apple apps such as Mail, Safari,
and TextEdit. In other apps, holding down a key does nothing.
If you find this feature annoying, it can be turned off so that keys will repeat
in the standard way when held down. To do so, open Terminal (open Finder,
