For all of its ease of use and powerful features, OS X still has impressive capabilities that are largely undocumented by Apple. Since OS X’s display technology, Quartz, is an ultra modern PDF rendering system, we gain the ability to print to PDF from almost any application. But would you believe there are PDF capabilities built in to OS X 10.2.x that Apple simply never made available to Mac users?

One little known feature is the ability to instantly do things with the PDF’s that are printed. When you choose the print option from most applications, you have button near the bottom of the screen that reads simply “Save As PDF…” This is a great feature. Anything you can print, you can print to PDF format for archiving or to email to a friend. But when Apple added this feature to the OS, they had a few other options in mind. These options have you to make it into a shipping version of OS X.

You can activate these features by navigating to the users home directory, opening the Library folder, and then creating a new folder called “PDF Services”. The next time you print, rather than the “Save As PDF…” button in your print dialog, you will see a new PDF icon. When you click on the icon, a menu appears. This menu is where the real power lies.

Have you ever wanted to print to a PDF document, and then instantly email that file to a friend? If you have, you’re in luck. Just open your newly created PDF Services folder and add an alias to your email client. The next time you see the print dialog, you will see the new PDF icon at the bottom. In its associated menu you will see your email client. As you would expect, selecting that option prints to PDF and then instantly attaches that PDF to a new email message for you. Not bad for an undocumented feature of your favorite OS!

If you return to the PDF Services directory, try renaming the alias of your email application. Change it to something like “Email with Entourage.” The alias I have created links to Entourage. When I rename it, I give it the name that I want to appear in the PDF menu. This makes the feature extremely intuitive.

Consider the other useful things you can do with aliases to similar applications. If I add an alias to Adobe Illustrator and name it “Open in Illustrator,” I can instantly open my PDF file in Illustrator for editing. You might do something similar by placing aliases to Adobe Photoshop, or Acrobat. The more creative you get, the more powerful the feature becomes!

While this may be a powerful and time saving feature of the Mac OS, it lacks the ease of use that Mac users have come to expect from OS X. And now, thanks to If Then Software, you can forgo the folder creation process. Just download PDF U 1.1 and install it. The software lets you activate this feature, not only for your user account, but for all user accounts on your system. It even added several aliases to the PDF menu for you. If you want to add additional item, just locate the PDF Services directory and add your alias.

PDF U 1.1 is donationware. If you like it, please make a donation. Whatever you feel the software is worth to you, they will graciously accept. If Then had made the process nearly as easy as Apple likely will in the next release of the Mac OS.