OS X: Adding a Folder to the PDF Services Menu

How many of you use the “PDF” menu on your printing dialog boxes regularly? If you never do, you should be aware that there’s some pretty cool functionality there. To have a look-see, choose File> Print (or press Command-P) in whatever program you’re in—Safari is a good one to start with.

See that little “PDF” drop-down? That’s where all the coolness is. 

So what you can do with this menu is save what you’re looking at—a webpage, for example, or a document—as a PDF or send a PDF of it to someone else. The options here may differ slightly depending on what programs you have installed, but the one we’re going to talk about is what I’ve highlighted in the screenshot above—“Edit Menu.” This’ll let you add your own custom folder into the list, so you can save a PDF of pretty much anything right to a folder you specify. Are you as excited as I am? You should be!

Anyway, select “Edit Menu,” and you’ll be taken to a strange (and probably empty) dialog box.

Click the plus button as I’ve indicated above, and then you can pick any folder you’d like to save your PDFs to.

After you’ve chosen your folder, clicked “Open,” and clicked “OK,” your selection will appear as an option right within the menu. Choosing that will then save the PDF of your webpage (or whatever) right to your special folder.

Another awesome thing about this is that your choices will appear no matter what program you’re in; these so-called PDF Services are available systemwide. So if you commonly save PDF receipts for online purchases from both Mail and Safari, say, this’ll be an easy way to pop ’em all into the same folder for safekeeping.