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When I right click on a Pages file (singular) or multiple text-files and open the Quick Actions submenu it is empty (only Customize… is visible). According to https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/mchl21ac2368/mac - there should be a create PDFs from selected files option.

If I select Customize… all actions are checked. If I right click a jpg, the Create PDF-option is there as expected, and for other file types other options appears.

Aren't text and Pages files supported?

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The Create PDF Quick Action only works for images or PDF files. (You can combine PDFs into one.)

A .txt file is just a string of characters: there's no information about page size, margins, font size and spacing, etc, etc. The OS can read the text, but it has no default page layout template.

Pages.app probably has to 'construct' or interpret the data in the file in some way.

In short: you'll need to create a new Quick Action for these files. Shortcuts has a "Make PDF" action that seems to include text as an input (I haven't tested it.) Otherwise, you'll need a sequence that opens the files in Pages, TextEdit, etc, and creates a page; then export as PDF.

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  • Back in the days, there where "desktop printers", where you could just drag a document and it would be printed. IIRC you could create a virtual PDF desktop printer that instead of printing created a PDF with sensible default options.
    – d-b
    Nov 21 at 10:36
  • @d-b Desktop Printers would still "call the app" in the background. There is software to create a print-to-file Printer queue, like CUPS-PDF.
    – benwiggy
    Nov 21 at 11:27

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