Hmm …
Well, THAT was a bit of a sod … !
I’ve got to be honest, I was at Brentwood Library, today.
Believe it or not, I actually needed to do some printing off.
Frankly … ?
Frankly, I’ve got a printer, but haven’t been able to afford ink for it, for a while.
So the fact Brentwood Library’s not too far away, and FAIRLY reasonable on prices, helps, sometimes.
As done the existence of the
.pdf
file format.You see, the file I wanted print off was some basic bits and bobs I wanted to have to had, so that I do do a clean re-install on the ageing Dell laptop I have sitting, behind me.
Just so you know … ?
.pdf
stands for ‘portable document format’: and the file type was designed to be one that — no matter what — was and is capable of being opened by any computer, no matter what operating system it uses: there’s even a version of Adobe’s Reader software for Windoze, Mac OS X, and many forms of Linux.The idea was — if I’ve understood things correctly — that you could design and write (say) a brochure on your Windows machine, and then take it down to your printing department — or local print shop — and have the thing printed out of their Macs.
Or vice verse.
And have it printed out, exactly as designed: and, again, regardless of operating system.
Now, on top of that … ?
Mac OS X can — as a legacy of it’s long association with the desktop publishing industry — can export near enough anything — webpage, Word document, Excel file, what-have-you — to
.pdf
format.It’s in any and every Print menu within Mac OS X, and its predecessor, Mac OS since about the year
dot
.At ANY rate … !
That’s how I managed to have the web-page with the information I needed: hitting ⌘ and p and picking the ‘Save As PDF’ option.
Saved the resultant file onto a little flash drive I keep around for exactly this kind of situation, and tottered up to the library to print it off.
Only to find, when I got there … ?
That Brentwood Library’s has a new procedure put in place to help them deal with printing: one that had both gone live, today …
And that, apparently, “… is having a problem printing
.pdf
s. And we can’t even convert them into anything else”.Which was a cue for a raised eyebrow, from me …
»»·««
You see, something I noticed, a long time ago, is that Adobe’s Reader software has had a
Save as text
feature for some time.Simply … ?
Simply the ability it has to save a given
.pdf
file — or the textural parts — as a .txt
file: in File>Save As>Text, so you know.And, as I pointed out to the staff at the library … ?
One that could be opened with either Notepad, or MS Office.
And either saved or printed from there.
»»·««
Now, I’ve got to admit, I’m …
Hmmm …
Feeling a bit smug, there, actually.
Well, but at least I think I’ve done a bit of good, passing a helpful bit of knowledge …
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