Making A PDF Out Of Multiple Photos?

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Level 7

24,503 points

Making A PDF Out Of Multiple Photos?

I asked this question a couple of years ago but none of the answers worked.

Selecting all the photos and opening them in Preview was OK but when I highlighted all the thumbnails in the right hand column and selected File>Print>PDF>Save as PDF only the first photo was saved.

So how can I get them all to open just as they did when I opened them all in Preview?

I want just one .pdf and not multiple photos.

24" 2.8 GHz (Penryn) 4GB RAM iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.6), FCE 4 + FCS 3 . . . Little Knowledge, Many Opinions.

Posted on Mar 12, 2011 2:51 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Mudge

Level 3

512 points

Mar 12, 2011 3:10 AM in response to Ian R. Brown

You're almost there. Select all the images in Preview and use "Print Selected Images..." in place of "Print...", then save to PDF. The resulting PDF will have multiple pages, with one image per page.

Message was edited by: Mudge

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Answer 2

Mar 12, 2011 3:25 AM in response to Ian R. Brown

Use Automator, that is the easiest way to do it.

Open Automator from Applications
Choose Workflow
From the Library (on the left)

Files & Folders > Get Specified Finder Items (drag to right part of window or double click on it to add it to the workflow)

PDFs > New PDF from Images
Select Save Output to: Location of your choice
Select Output File Name: Name of your choice
Adjust the photo sizes if you wish

(This one is optional)
File & Folders > Open Finder Items
(this will open the new PDF in Preview (or other PDF viewer) to view the result.

Now drag or add the photos into the 'Get Specified Finder Items' section

Run.

Photos are now combined into one PDF and opened to view.

You can also save the workflow for later use to, so you don't hve to set it up each time.

Hope this helps

Message was edited by: actionmarker
Typing message while other answer posted.

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Answer 3

Ian R. Brown Author

Level 7

24,503 points

Mar 13, 2011 3:52 AM in response to Ian R. Brown

I just made an Automator application and it takes around 45 seconds though it can't be timed accurately.

This is because the .pdf appears on the desktop within 5 seconds but double clicking it only brings up a warning saying that Preview can't open it and it may be damaged.

Repeated attempts produce the same message but after about 45 seconds it opens correctly.

I assume that Preview does not recognise the earlier attempts because, though the .pdf icon has appeared, the contents are still being created.

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Answer 4

Mar 13, 2011 3:04 AM in response to Ian R. Brown

I need send clients photos once a week from construction sites, so I need to do it dozen times a week.
For me, Automator is definitely the quickest.

I have the automator action saved on the computer, so al i need to do is drop the files there and run.
Automator then creates a PDF, Compress the images in the PDF and adds it to mail.

For me, that saves heaps of time

A

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Answer 5

Ian R. Brown Author

Level 7

24,503 points

Mar 13, 2011 3:24 AM in response to actionmarker

I tested it both ways and there's not much in it.

In each test I opened the picture folder and selected all the images before starting the stopwatch.

Using 440 images and doing it the Preview way took 55 seconds.

Automator took 48 seconds though I didn't count the time it took to launch Automator or select the actions, which would have made it about the same.

No doubt if you have your computer set up to do it you could shave off a few more seconds, but generally there's not much in it.

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Answer 6

Apr 16, 2011 9:23 PM in response to Ian R. Brown

Hi all - I am trying to do something slightly different....

I have a folder full of images. I want to make a single PDF of all the images but I want to have the images be at their native dimension AND I want to include the file name.

I did the automator solution and the Preview solutions mentioned above - both create a PDF with each image being full page vs. actual dimensions. I also want to capture the images name, and maybe it's native dimensions too (like automatically including the "get info" data in the output file).

Any ideas on how I can automate such a thing?

Thanks!

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