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Recently I've found myself in the situation where I need to convert an image to a PDF. To do this on the Mac, you have to open the document and use the File > Export as PDF option. Now I don't know about you, but personally I find this takes WAAAY to long.
Wouldn't it be great if you could just right-click on the file and convert it into a PDF instantly without opening the file? Well, I've got some good news, because you can!
(If you already know this trick then just humour me)
1. Open Automator on your Mac.
2. Choose the “Service” document type.
3. Make sure the “Service receives selected” option is set to “image files” in “Finder”.
This means the option to convert an image only appears when you right-click on an image and not on other file types.
4. Search for the “New PDF from Images” option using the search box or by going to the “PDFs” section in the library.
I changed the “Output File Name” to “New PDF”.
4. Customise the settings to your liking.
I chose NOT to replace existing files.
5. Save the workflow and call it “Convert to PDF”.
6. That's it!
To use the service, simply right-click on an image or group of images and choose the “Convert to PDF” option that has appeared at the bottom of the menu. The image (or images), will be converted to PDF and saved wherever you've chosen to have them saved (in my case, the Desktop). Note that if you select a group of images they'll be combined into one document.
Now that I've discovered this little hack I'll be sure to spend some time seeing what else I can do with Automator and the Mac services menu.