From Macworld today, four great tips for working with PDFs in Snow Leopard, paraphrased below:

1. E-Mail PDFs with one click

Many of us use the PDF button at the bottom of the Print dialogue box to save a document as a PDF. That’s a great trick available in Leopard. Another great trick is the Mail PDF choice under the same button. Choose Mail PDF and the PDF is created, your default email app is launched, a new message created and the PDF is attached. Enter an address, subject and a message and you’re done. Brilliant!

2. Save a page (or several) from a PDF

Ever wanted to send or save only one or a few pages from a long document? Easy… open the PDF in Preview, and make sure you can see the sidebar… click the Sidebar button on the Preview toolbar or press Command-Shift-D. You should see a thumbnail of each page of the document. If you don’t, click the second button from the left at the bottom of the sidebar or press Command-Option-2.

Find the page you want to save, and drag its thumbnail to the desktop or to a Finder window. If you want multiple pages, select them with Shift-clicking (adjacent pages) or Command-click (non-contiguous pages) and drag to your destination. The page(s) will be saved as PDF name(dragged).pdf.

3. Merge PDF pages

Ever had a number of small PDFs that would be much better in a single file? Easy! Open the PDFs in Preview, display the sidebar with thumbnails. Under Leopard, you could drag one PDF into place below another to add it to the file. In Snow Leopard, tho, there’s a new trick.

Drag the second PDF on top of the first one. This changes the display of the first PDF in the sidebar.

Click on the arrow button to “close” or “open” the PDF, toggleing between showing the first page and all the pages. This makes it easy to be sure you have the docs in the right order. When you do, press Command_S to save the document, or Command-Shift-S to save as a new document with a new name.

4. Read PDFs more easily on a laptop

A portrait-formatted PDF can be tough to read on a small laptop screen, particularly with multiple columns. Scrolling up and down to move from one column to the next is a real pain. Here’s a great trick: read them like a book.

In Preview, choose Tools -> Rotate Left or Rotate Right. Then hold the laptop like a book, with the screen in one hand, keyboard in the other. Flip the Laptop to choose the side you prefer for easy reading.

With Adobe Reader, choose View -> Rotate View -> Clockwise (or Counterclockwise) and press Command-L for full-screen mode. Then you aren’t distracted by menus or toolbars, flipping pages by pressing the spacebar, or moving back by pressing Shift-spacebar.

Thanks to Kirk McElhearn and Macworld.

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by Michael Scalisi, PC World

The following article is reprinted from the BizFeed blog at PCWorld.com.

Macs are often criticized for the high price of their hardware. This so-called Apple tax is the premium that Apple computers usually cost over comparably equipped PCs. But since the company dropped prices on its laptop line yesterday, that difference is now smaller than ever.

Of course, Mac enthusiasts might even say the Apple tax never existed, since no MacBook Pro competitor has the aluminum unibody construction or multi-touch track pad that the MacBook Pro does.

In any case, I’ve been playing with the numbers, and I’ve noticed something interesting: When the newest 13-inch MacBook Pro is configured with similar features and put head to head with a Dell XPS 1330 (arguably Dell’s most similar computer), the two come within spitting distance in price.

The base price for the 13-inch MacBook Pro is $1199 while the Dell XPS M1330 starts at $749. Using each company’s online configuration tool, I created systems with the following attributes: 13.3-inch LED backlit screen, 4GB RAM, 320GB Hard disk, Nvidia GE Force 9400M Graphics Card, 802.11n networking, integrated webcam, backlit keyboard and Bluetooth. The MacBook comes with a 2.26 GHz Intel processor with a 1066 MHz frontside bus, versus 2.4 GHz and 800 MHz, respectively, for the Dell.

The Dell was configured with a 9-cell battery, which should at least approach the 7 hours Apple advertises for its integrated battery. Dell’s computer weighs in at just under 4 pounds with a 6-cell battery and with the 9-cell is likely to be pretty close to the MBP’s 4.5 pounds. Both included a one-year warranty. Including Windows Vista Home Premium, the Dell came out to $1304 as compared to $1399 for the Apple. Apple tax: $95.

For those willing to put a premium on the featherweight computing experience, the new $1499 base price of the MacBook Air should give you a reason to take a fresh look. Also, it should cause Dell to break a sweat as the competing Adamo now starts at a full $500 more. In its $1799 configuration, the Air matches the 128GB Solid Stage Drive of the Adamo and bests its 1.2 GHz processor with one that clocks in at 2.13 GHz. Both come with 2GB of RAM and no optical drive. The Air weighs one full pound less than the Adamo at 3 lbs.

If you’ve been attracted to OS X and the Apple computer experience, but have been put off by high prices, Apple just extended an olive branch to you.

Michael Scalisi is an IT manager based in Alameda, California.

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Some of my clients are power users, some are recent PC people, and most are somewhere in the vast middle ground. One thing I’ve noticed is that many don’t know or use keyboard shortcuts. They save me so much time and wrist pain that I don’t know what I’d do without ‘em. I thought I’d share a few of the more useful ones.

A Few Favorite Keyboard Shortcuts

Most of us know these:
(Command + N) makes a new window in the Finder, a new document in most apps.

(Command + F) In the Finder opens a ”Find“ window, to search for files by title, content or many other variables.

(Command + O) In the Finder, if you select something and use this command you open the file, folder, application etc. you selected. In most apps it brings up the Open dialogue box, for you to navigate to the file you want to open.

(Command + S) Save, in almost every application. Use (Command + Shift + S) for Save As, to save the file with another name.

(Command + D) In a Save, Save As or Download dialogue box you use this to take you directly to the Desktop.
(Command + Delete) In the Finder, select a file or folder and use this to move it directly to the trash.

(Command + Click) This allows you to select multiple items in the finder, or in most applications, particular non-contiguous items.

(Command + Tab) In the Finder, this use this command with the Command key held down, and you’ll see a graphic representation of currently running applications. You can click on one to bring it to the front, or tap the Tab key to move one app to the right… or hold the shift key at the same tim and you will go to the left.

Try a few of these out, if you don’t already use Keyboard shortcuts. See if you like being able to keep your fingers on the keyboard, instead of having to go to the mouse to move around. If you like this way of working, in the Menus in the Menu Bar, in the Finder and in applications, you’ll see keyboard shortcuts next to the menu items that have ‘em. There’s a way to make your own, too, but that’s for another day.

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Apple offers a number of free, on-demand online seminars. One I highly recommend for new Mac users and business users curious about the Mac is New to the Mac and Compatibility with Windows.

Part One: New to the Mac is intended for small business users new to the Mac, or who are thinking about moving to the Mac. It includes “useful tips for starting out on and customizing the Mac, including shortcuts and quick keystroke/mouse commands”.

Part Two: Compatibility with Windows includes info on connecting your Mac to existing workgroups and other office computers, sharing files and printers, and instant message with video between Macs and other computers. It is intended for “small business users with a typical office workgroup scenario, who are interested in sharing/interfacing with other users with different computers and peripherals”.

Register here…

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