PDF

What's SEP? If you Google the SEP file extension, you might think it's an enhancer for The Sims, the popular game. Or maybe it's a TIFF, or maybe a printer separation page. For our purposes, SEP stands for Sursen e-Paper. It's a proprietary digital document technology that competes with Adobe's PDF format, especially in China, where it holds a substantial market share, according to the developer. So, sooner or later, a lot of people will probably need to open and read SEP files. That's where Sursen's SEP Reader comes in. It's a … Read more

Google helped make Adobe Systems' PDF files a first-class citizen on the Web years ago by indexing their content with its search engine. Now it's gone another step by building the ability to read them into its latest browser, Chrome 8, released yesterday for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

That means when people click a PDF link, the document will open directly in the browser. Chrome's built-in PDF reader is also walled up within a sandbox, lowering the risk that security issues will escape a confined region of memory to facilitate a broader attack on a computer.

The PDF … Read more

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Got a new PC?

If you are one of the millions of shoppers in the market for a new computer this holiday season, you won't want to miss CNET download.com's "New Year, New PC" bundle. We've teamed up with AVG, IObit, Smith Micro and Foxit to offer you this exclusive deal for a limited time only - a $170 worth of software essentials for just $30. That's a total … Read more

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which we answer questions e-mailed from our readers. This week we have questions on Web browsers not loading Web pages, trackpads and mice getting stuck in a "clicked" mode, and Safari not being able to load PDF files. We continually answer e-mail questions, and while we present a few here, we certainly welcome alternative approaches and views from readers and encourage you to post your suggestions in the comments.

Question: Browser not loading Web pages or connecting to Wi-Fi hot spots

MacFixIt reader "Philippe" asks:

Until last week, [my daughter] … Read more

For people who love to read but don't have a lot of extra cash to spend on books, nothing beats the public library. Love ya, Ben Franklin!

In recent years, many libraries have started offering e-books that you can check out for a few weeks, just like the real thing. Unfortunately, despite the plethora of e-book readers in the App Store, you couldn't read these DRM-protected library titles on your iPhone, iPod, or iPad.

Now you can. Bluefire Reader now supports not only ePub and PDF formats, but also the Adobe DRM used by most libraries. I just … Read more

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which we answer questions e-mailed from our readers. This week we have questions on how to embed multimedia in PDF documents, clarification on the version numbers for iPhoto/iLife, items on the desktop rearranging themselves, and using a HDTV as a monitor for a Mac Mini. We continually answer e-mail questions, and while we present a few here, we certainly welcome alternative approaches and views from readers and encourage you to post your suggestions in the comments.

Question: Embedding movies and audio in PDF documents

MacFixIt reader "ngroves" asks:

I need to … Read more

PortableApps offers fully functional, fully portable versions of popular open source software. Its Sumatra PDF Portable is a lightweight version of the PDF file viewer. It's small enough to fit on just about any mobile device or storage medium, giving you the option of viewing PDF files on the go. As a portable application, it will run on any compatible Windows machine without installation and without leaving behind any personal information or changes to the registry.

The Sumatra PDF Portable "installer" copies the program's executable to a destination of your choice; the default destination is a … Read more

Free PDF Creator from GIRDAC InfoTechnologies is a free application that can create PDF documents from hundreds of Windows applications without requiring any Adobe software. It can create a PDF document from the Print properties of any printable file. It can handle multiple users on one system and save each user's settings for regular operation, and it displays a Conversion Report when it's done.

Free PDF Creator is essentially a printer driver that lets you save or print documents in the PDF format from the Print properties dialog of any file. However, it also has a setup interface, … Read more

Junko is a free tool that lets you split PDF files into separate documents by page range or number or combine many PDFs into larger files. By splitting large PDFs into multiple smaller files, you can work on just the pages or sections you need, and they're easier for small apps to handle. Combining multiple PDFs is useful for creating manuals and other multipage documents. Junko is powered by PDFsharp, the open-source .NET library of PDF wares.

Junko's interface is very basic and opens with a blank main view, but it's Aero-compatible and has a customizable toolbar. … Read more