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How Do I Change the Default Printer To “Save As PDF”?

We rarely print to paper anymore. Would like guidance to use Terminal to permanently change from physical printing to Save to PDF in all apps. Maybe in a PLIST somewhere? MacOS 10.15.4
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Larry Jaeger

Comments: 2 Responses to “How Do I Change the Default Printer To “Save As PDF”?”

    4 years ago

    You can't. Because "Save as PDF" isn't one of the printers in the list. It is a special function of the Print dialog.

    But, you can do something that is maybe even better. In System Preferences, Keyboard Shortcuts, Shortcuts, you can add an App Shortcut for the menu item "Save as PDF." Even though the PDF menu in the Print dialog isn't in the menu bar, the keyboard shortcut will still appear in that menu. Strange, but true!

    If you set it to Command+P, then you can use Command+P to go to the Print dialog and Command+P again (Command+P, but press P twice) to go right to Save as PDF.

    larry jaeger
    4 years ago

    Excellent! How did you ever find this? Does Apple know about this bug, er, undocumented feature?

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