Category Archives: Mac OS X Platform

Force Adobe OCR if page contains “renderable text” on Mac

Posted on May 2, 2013 | 1 Comment

This is a appears to be a difficult problem because there appears to be no straightforward way to remove renderable text. If you try to open the PDF in Preview and print as PDF or even as PostScript, the renderable text still remains.

The solution lies in exporting the PDF to an image format, e.g., TIFF. TIFF is better than JPEG because you don’t get rendering artifacts. Also it supports multi-page documents. PNG does not give artifacts, but also does not allow for multi-page documents.

When exporting to TIFF make sure you select a high DPI, e.g., 600, to preserve quality. The default is only 150 which is too low.

Then open the such created TIFF once more in Preview and re-export as PDF.

The such created PDF should pose no more problems for OCR in Acrobat.

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Posted in Mac OS X Platform, Workflow

Adobe Acrobat (Pro) XI Install Error on OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on March 20, 2013 | Leave a comment

Have you had difficulty installing Acrobat 11 on Mac OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.2? I did too. And of course the solution is easy if you know how.

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Posted in Mac OS X Platform

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Duplicate Database Structure in Bento 4

Posted on January 2, 2012 | Leave a comment

Bento 4 comes with a nice set of templates. It is also easy to customize these templates; however, once customized, there is no straightforward way to duplicate a database. For instance in my case I customized the “Vehicle Maintenance” Template by replacing the ‘Location’ field with a drop down menu populated by various places I go for my car service. I did not want to set this up from scratch for another vehicle. Continue reading →

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Posted in Mac OS X Platform, Technology, Tips & Tricks

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Maxima, Octave, and Gnuplot in OS X Snow Leopard

Posted on February 26, 2011 | Leave a comment

A nice collection of free math software for the Mac, covering both symbolic and numeric math and graphing. When you go to the main project pages from Maxima, Gnuplot, and Octave, it seems that no well supported Mac versions are available, at least not without compiling it yourself. Fortunately, this is not quite accurate. Read more to see how. Continue reading →

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Posted in Mac OS X Platform, Software

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Backup and Transfer ScanSnap Profile Settings

Posted on November 16, 2010 | Leave a comment

You want to move your detailed ScanSnap profile settings from one Mac to another one (or back them up), yet, the ScanSnap Manager has no built-in functionality to do so.

Not too surprisingly, profile information is stored in a preference file, but the trick is to know which one. The answer can be found here:

http://www.documentsnap.com/how-to-backup-your-scansnap-profile-settings-on-the-mac/

The file you are looking for is:

jp.co.pfu.ScanSnap.V10L10.plist

Simply copy it to the other Mac and you are all set.

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Posted in Mac OS X Platform, Tips & Tricks

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White Apple Bluetooth Keyboard Not Compatible With iPhone 4

Posted on October 30, 2010 | Leave a comment

The title says it all. Here’s the official statement from Apple:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4112

This is very upsetting.

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Posted in Mac OS X Platform, Technology

Convert Mac .webloc files to Windows-compatible hyperlinks

Posted on October 13, 2010 | 3 Comments

An ideal solution would simply convert the .webloc files to .url files. I am still looking for such a solution, in the meantime, a trick I found here works well:

Open Textedit, click and drag .webloc files or URL (from Safari) into document, an Http link is formed. Press right arrow key to go to end of line, then press Return twice. Repeat.

You can save as many links as you like, or open up the file later and add more links. Save it as a .rtf document (default) and it can be used in Windows or Mac.

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Posted in Mac OS X Platform, MS-Windows Platform, Tips & Tricks

Fast file transfer between Windows & Mac via TCP-IP over Firewire

Posted on August 18, 2010 | Leave a comment

The basic idea and setup is described here, however, many details are missing, so I put together detailed instructions with screenshots. I am describing the configuration between a Mac running Leopard and a Windows 95 Machine. Continue reading →

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Posted in Mac OS X Platform, MS-Windows Platform, Tips & Tricks

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Optimal Setup for Gmail, Apple Mail, and iPhone with IMAP

Posted on August 2, 2010 | Leave a comment

I am truly thankful for this article that explains the best way I have found to configure everything “for maximum happiness” as the author puts it without the slightest bit of exaggeration. See for yourself:

http://db.tidbits.com/article/10253

However, I should note that I do modify the approach a little bit for my own purposes. I do happen to like Gmail’s “All Mail” concept, so I am skipping the steps suggested to hide the “All Mail” and “Starred” folders; but that is certainly a personal preference and does not change the overall excellent method described.

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Posted in Mac OS X Platform, Software, Tips & Tricks

Prevent Time Machine Backups of iTunes Movie Rentals

Posted on August 2, 2010 | Leave a comment

Leopard’s Time Machine has an option to exclude certain folders from being backed-up. iTunes movie rentals which usually weigh in with greater than 1 GB are a prime example for what should not be backed-up. Unfortunately, movie rentals are stored in iTunes’ Movie folder–along with all your other movies that you may have purchased, or made yourself. So what to do?

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Posted in Mac OS X Platform, Technology, Tips & Tricks