Hi Chris, Skim has been referred to as "Preview on steroids". It's free and open source with a creative commons license, and gets frequent updates. You can download the latest version from Source Forge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/skim-app/files/ I don't know that there are any "cons" about using Skim, except that since it has a lot of options, there's more to navigate in the basic distribution, and it has more features than you will use. The quick description is that it is laid out very much like Preview, but supports annotation, so there is a second sidebar for notes. Because it uses the same base as Preview, any limitations that you find when reading PDFs in Preview will show up in Skim. So, for example, bookmarks take you back to the page you were reading but not to the exact spot in the page (unless you set hotspots). On the other hand, there are expanded features, such as being able to organize your bookmarks into folders.
One situation where someone might clearly want to use Skim over Preview, is if they were reviewing a PowerPoint or Keynote presentation that was exported to PDF. These don't play nicely with Preview, even using Full Screen mode. But Skim has an additional "Presentation mode" for viewing, and you can easily display presentations in this mode, controlling page transitions, etc. So this is an easy and accessible way to give a text-based presentation or to review notes from the text content of a presentation. I originally started using Skim because it maintained more stable focus behavior than Preview in operations like search and find. When there are really good Skim features eventually they get adopted and show up in later versions of Preview. By the way, since Skim is supported as an open source effort at Source Forge and is freely available there and not through the Mac App Store, there's a Skim rip-off being sold in the Mac App Store as "PDF Reader". It's based on an old version of Skim, and I'm rather surprised that Apple hasn't pulled this, since there's no support, and the distributor is just profiting from the (old version) open source efforts of Skim. Since a number of Mac users follow Skim, and it's highly rated at various download sites like MacUpdate, a few people bought the version in the App Store when it showed up thinking that it was put out by the people who work on Skim. It's not, and you'll just be paying for an unsupported, old version. HTH. Cheers, Esther On Aug 3, 2012, at 11:28 PM, chris hallsworth wrote: > The subject says it all. What are the pros and cons please. Thanks! > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Esther" <mori...@mac-access.net> > To: <macvisionaries@googlegroups.com> > Sent: Saturday, August 04, 2012 2:43 AM > Subject: Re: merging several PDF files into one. > > > Hi Chris, > > It's actually possible to merge PDF files with Preview if you can drag and > drop to the thumbnails in the sidebar, but I don't think this works with > VoiceOver drag and drop -- at the very least it would be difficult. If you > have Skim downloaded there's an embedded SkimPDF command line tool that lets > you perform operations like merging and extracting PDF files in Terminal. > > If you look under: /Applications/Skim.app/Contents/SharedSupport/ there are > three applications: displayline, skimnotes, and skimpdf. You need to copy > skimpdf to somewhere in your default path with executable permission using > your Admin password. > > Open Terminal and type or paste in: > sudo cp -p /Applications/Skim.app/Contents/SharedSupport/skimpdf /usr/bin/ > > and press "Return". You'll be prompted to authorize with your Admin > password. The "cp -p" does the copy preserving permissions so you can execute > the commands. > > Then to merge two pdf files from the command line you can type: > skimpdf merge file1.pdf file2.pdf merged.pdf > > The specification of an output file like "merged.pdf" is optional. I think > if you don't specify an output file, the second file just gets appended to > the first, but you should experiment. You can also find out the syntax of > commands by typing: > skimpdf help > > For more information, take a look at the SourceForge wiki for Skim: > http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/skim-app/index.php?title=Main_Page > > Then use the link for the "SkimPDF Command Line Tool" to find out more. > There's also a specific SourceForge wiki for the SkimPDF command line tool: > http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/skim-app/index.php?title=SkimPDF_Tool > > There are probably other sources of merge tools around the web, but this > works if you already have Skim anyway, and are comfortable with the Terminal > command line. > > HTH. Cheers, > > Esther > > > On Aug 3, 2012, at 2:26 PM, Chris Gilland wrote: > >> okay, so here's the deal. >> >> I was e-mailed five pDF files today. basically, to make a long story short, >> it is an owners manual. I am not sure why he did it this way, however each >> page of the manual is a separate PDF file. Granted, the manual is only five >> pages long, so it's nothing really to write home about, I am curious >> however, if there is a program that I could use, that would allow me to take >> all five of these PDF files and basically merge them into one file. that >> would make my life so much easier! don't get me wrong, I have no problem >> viewing each page separately, but it's going to be a pain in the neck trying >> to view each page separately. >> >> yes, I definitely do you use Docuscan Plus, but I do not believe that that >> will do the trick. >> >> I also know almost beyond a doubt that preview will not do the trick either. >> Someone correct me should I be wrong. >> >> I almost wonder if Pages would be able to do the trick. I do have a copy of >> iWork 2009. >> >> thank you for any help, and all suggestions. >> >> Chris. >> >> Sent from my iPhone >> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. 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