PDFs
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Chrome's new tab grouping feature brings order to chaos
Chrome is getting a handful of new features and faster tabs.
Can't save PDF files from Safari with Mountain Lion? Here's the fix
There's quite a bit of traffic on Apple's discussion boards (and others) about a problem with saving PDF files that have been viewed in Safari with Mountain Lion. Safari can view PDF files just fine, but for many people the problems start when you go to save the files or print them. The files get corrupted, and you're met with a message that tells you the file is damaged. There is no problem viewing a PDF you already have in either Apple's Preview app or with Adobe Reader. If Safari is involved, however, you are likely to have some issues. You can try to open the file in Adobe Reader, and you'll get a similar message. The cause seems to be a problem with Adobe Reader updates. There's a file in your Library/Internet Plug-Ins called 'AdobePDFViewerNPAPI.plugin'. Find it, and trash it. You'll also see a file called 'AdobePDFViewer.plugin'. Don't trash that one, it's fine. I had this problem on both my Mac laptop and Mac Pro. I checked with a couple of friends and they all had the same problem. Some people have spent a lot of time on the phone with Apple and haven't gotten the problem resolved, as the issue rests with Adobe, not Apple. Let us know if you've seen this, or if you haven't. Lots of people are affected, but you may not see the problem until you need to view or print that PDF. Saving a PDF link without opening it works fine, but if the document is opened in Safari, and then saved, then the trouble can begin.
Wolfram launches open CDF format, adds visual pizzazz to charts and graphs
Amazon's Kindle DX and RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook were supposed to be the business world's answer to an on-the-go office. Turns out, PDFs viewed in e-ink or on a tethered slate don't offer much in the way of interactive app experiences -- they're still just documents, no matter the tablet they're wearing. Well, Wolfram Group's got an open format contender to Adobe's throne and it's hoping you'll adopt it. Introduced today, the Computable Document Format "puts easy-to-author interactivity at its core," breathing animated life into otherwise static infographics. Not a programmer? No need to worry, the company promises the two-way diagrams are "easy enough for teachers, journalists, managers, [and] researchers to... create." We've seen Microsoft's XPS take a similar crack at dethroning the reigning format king, only to find itself in portable document oblivion. We'll just have to wait and see if CDF's a more noble contender. In the meantime, head on over to the source to download the free player and see for yourself the possible future of live textbooks, tables and charts.
Firefox-Mac-PDF allows in-line PDFs for Firefox
If you switched to Firefox from another browser like Safari that supports in-line PDF viewing (that's the ablity to look at a PDF in the browser instead of downloading it), then you might have been disheartened to learn that Firefox does not support this feature natively. However, you will find Firefox-Mac-PDF to be a useful plug-in. Firefox-Mac-PDF allows for the same in-line PDF viewing that can be found in Safari. This plug-in requires Firefox 3 and Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) or higher. You can download the plug-in for free from their Google Code page.To install the plug-in, just open the Add-ons panel by going to Tools > Add-ons. Once there, drag the downloaded ".xpi" file to the Add-ons. You will be asked if you wish to install the plug-in. Once you restart Firefox you'll be able to view all PDFs right within Firefox. [via Lifehacker]
iPhone: The Missing Manual available in August, PDF bundle available now
The venerable David Pogue has worked his relentless magic yet again to conjure up yet another manual that apparently should have been in the box with iPhone: The Missing Manual (though one could certainly argue that there would have been no way to fit a typical book in the iPhone's impressively compact packaging anyway). As the promo email that I just received states, Pogue's iPhone coverage is summarized into four primary categories: the phone and organizer, the iPod, the Internet, and the hardware and software. Pogue even tackles such issues as synching an iPhone with multiple machines and ways to solve the iPhone's lack of a spam filter. Heck, Mr. Pogue is so into the iPhone, he even sang about switching to it.If you're already hooked and itching to both buy and read, O'Reilly is offering a bundle deal right up your alley: though the $20 book doesn't ship until sometime in August, you can purchase a $24.99 bundle to get a PDF copy right now. Either way, you can find out more details at O'Reilly's product page for iPhone: The Missing Manual.
TUAW Tip: Create smaller PDF files
PDFs created by OS X's built-in "Save as PDF..." option on the print menu have a tendency to bloat. OS X's PDFs are often a lot bigger than the ones you get from, say, Adobe Acrobat. (Not the "reader", the actual creation program.) Fortunately, the same PDF menu that allows you to print to PDF also allows you to create a smaller, compressed version of your material. Instead of selecting "Save as PDF...", try selecting "Compress PDF" instead. You'll produce a compact version of your PDF file. To test, I printed TUAW's home page in both normal and compressed versions. The savings? Almost 10% smaller file size.
Create a PDF listing of a folder's contents
MurphyMac has posted yet another cool how-to video. This one shows how to create a PDF listing of the contents of an OS X folder. It relies on creating a sidebar printer, which you can find out how to do in this related trick. By dragging a folder to the sidebar printer and saving to PDF, you create a tabular listing of the folder's contents. The video offers the complete how-to steps. I can easily see using this trick to create an index for photos or videos that I need to archive. MurphyMac is the same site that showed us how to sleep a Mac by email and customize your disk images.
MAKE's guide to PDF podcasts
My Make-buddy Phillip Torrone tipped us off on his recent PDF-in-iTunes guide. As you might already know, there are more and more PDFs appearing in iTunes, usually as support material for podcasts but they're starting to become a desirable product in and of themselves. Philip and his crew have put together as complete a PDF podcast guide as possible, to help people locate and download iTunes-available PDF podcasts from sources like CRAFT, SkyMaul (*hee*!), Rick Steves and more. Lots and lots of cool stuff to explore.
