Create and Convert PDF Files

• Create a PDF by Drag-and-Drop
• Create a PDF from a File
• Create PDFs from Multiple Files
• Create a PDF from a Blank Page
• Create a PDF from Clipboard
• Create a PDF from a Web Page
• Create a PDF from Scanner
• Print to PDF
• Convert and Export PDF Files
• Create and Customize a PDF Portfolio
• Validate and Create PDF/A,PDF/E, and PDF/X-compliance Files
• OCR PDF Files

Create a PDF by Drag-and-Drop

This method is best for small and simple files. Drag and drop any supported file (Microsoft Office, image, HTML, or TXT file) that you want to convert onto Foxit PhantomPDF Mac icon or Foxit PhantomPDF Mac application window, and the file will be converted to PDF and displayed in Foxit PhantomPDF Mac. Then you can click the Save button(or choose File > Save) to save the converted PDF file.

Tip: When creating a PDF from a Microsoft Office file, you will need to specify the conversion settings. For more information, please refer to "Office to PDF Settings".

Create a PDF from a File

You can create a PDF from Microsoft Office, image, HTML, or TXT files.

• Do any of the following:
  • Choose File in the Ribbon > Create > From File group > From File button.
  • Choose File menu > Create > From File.
  • Choose Convert > From Files > From File. 
• Select a file you want to convert, and click Open.
• (Optional) If you choose to convert a Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint file to PDF, the Office to PDF settings dialog box will pop up by default. Choose the way you want to convert the Office file to PDF, and click OK. In this step, Foxit PhantomPDF Mac will remember your selection and apply it as default the next time you convert a Microsoft Office file to PDF. If you do not want to see the dialog box during conversion next time, remember to check the Don't show again option.
• Click Save button(or choose File > Save), and specify the file name and location to save the converted PDF file.

Tip: Foxit PhantomPDF Mac provides two ways for you toconvert Microsoft Office files to PDFs, using the local service or Foxit Online Service. Before conversion, you can also go to File tab (or Foxit PhantomPDF in the menu bar) > Preferences > Create PDF, and choose how you would like to convert Microsoft Office files to PDFs and specify whether or not to show the Office to PDF settings dialog box during conversion. If you choose to use the local service, please make sure that you have installed Microsoft Office 2016 or higher on your Mac device. If you choose to use Foxit Online Service, Internet connection is required during conversion.

Create PDFs from Multiple Files

Foxit PhantomPDF Mac allows you to easily merge files of different types into a single PDF file, or convert them into separate PDFs. When creating PDFs from multiple Microsoft Office files, please make sure that you have installed Microsoft Office 2016 or higher on your Mac device.

Convert and Combine Multiple Files into a Single PDF

• Do any of the following:
  • Choose File in the Ribbon > Create > Combine Files group > Combine Files button.
  • Choose Convert > Combine Files.
• In the Combine files into a single PDF dialog box, click Add files, and select one of the following options:
  • Add Files: Add one or more files from your local drives.
  • Add Folder: Choose a folder to add all the supported files in that folder to the “Combine files into a single PDF” list.
  • Add Open Files: Choose currently opened PDF files to add to the file list you want to combine.
  • Add PDF From Scanner: Scan documents to PDFs and add the scanned PDFs to the file list you want to combine. For the details about how to scan documents to PDF, please refer to Create a PDF from Scanner.
  • Add Web Page: Input a URL, or browse and select an HTML file you want to combine. Then click Add.
  • Add Clipboard: Create a PDF from the clipboard and add it to the file list you want to combine.  
• (Optional) By default, Foxit PhantomPDF Mac will use the name of each file as the root bookmark in the combined PDF file. To edit the bookmark, double-click the file (or right-click the file and choose Edit Bookmark for File) in the Combine files into a single PDF dialog box. If you do not want to add bookmarks when combining files, please change the setting in the Options dialog box.  
• (Optional) You can adjust the order of files to be displayed in the combined PDF by the files’ name, modified time, or size by clicking the corresponding column name. Or, adjust the order of files manually as desired by clicking the Move Up/Move Down button. Selecting a file and clicking the Remove button can delete the added file from the list.  
• (Optional) For a Microsoft Office file or PDF file, select it and click Choose Pages to specify the page range to be converted, if necessary.
• Click Options to specify the following options as desired, and click OK to continue.  
  • Always add bookmarks: Checking this option helps you add bookmarks in the combined PDF file, which uses the file names of each file as the root bookmarks and the original bookmarks from source files (if any) as the child bookmarks. When this option is checked, you can check Add a new table of contents page converted from bookmarks option to create a table of contents from the file names of each file in the combined PDF file.
  • Continue combining if an error occurs: If this option is checked, Foxit PhantomPDF Mac will continue combining files if an error occurs, and show the error messages after conversion.
  • Retain the logic page number during combination: If this option is checked, the combined PDF file will keep the logic page numbers in the original files.
• Click Combine.
• If you have added multimedia, Add Audio & Video dialog box will pop up. Specify the content settings and poster settings, and click OK. Each multimedia will be inserted as a new page in the combined PDF file.
• The combined PDF file will be opened with Foxit PhantomPDF Mac automatically after conversion. Then click the Save button  (or File > Save) to save the combined PDF file.

Convert Multiple Files into Separate PDF Files

• Do any of the following:
  • Choose File in the Ribbon > Create > From Multiple Files group > From Multiple Files button.
  • Choose File menu > Create > From Multiple Files.
  • Choose Convert > From Files > From Multiple Files.
• In the Convert Multiple Files dialog box, drag and drop the file or folder that you want to convert into the Arrange your files area, or click Add Files and choose Add Files/ Add Folder to select the files or folders you want to convert.
• (Optional) Files will be converted in a sequence as they are ordered in the Convert Multiple Files dialog box. You can adjust the order of files by its name, modified time, or size by clicking the corresponding column name. Alternatively, adjust the order of files manually by clicking the Move Up/Move Down button. Select a file and click the Remove button to delete it, if necessary. 
• (Optional) If you need to save the converted PDF files with the same name in the same location as the original file, check the Keep original file names and locations option.
• Click Convert.
• (Optional) If you did not check the Keep original file names and locations option, choose the folder in which you want to save the converted PDF files in the pop-up dialog box, and click Open.

Create a PDF from a Blank Page

• Do any of the following:
  • Choose File in the Ribbon > Create > Blank group > Blank button.
  • Choose File menu > Create > From Blank Page.
  • Choose Convert > Blank.
• (Optional) Use the typewriter tool or edit tools to add contents in the blank page.
• Click the Save button  (or File > Save) to save the file.

Create a PDF from Clipboard

• Do any of the following:
  • Choose File in the Ribbon > Create > From Clipboard group > From Clipboard button.
  • Choose File menu > Create > From Clipboard.
  • Choose Convert > From Clipboard.
• The texts or images in the clipboard will be converted to a new PDF file.

Create a PDF from a Web Page

• Do any of the following:
  • Choose File in the Ribbon > Create > From Web Page group > From web page button.
  • Choose File menu > Create > From Web Page.
  • Choose Convert > From Web Page.
• In the pop-up Create PDF From Web Page dialog box, do the following:
  • In the URL field, input the URL address of a web page, or choose a URL address that you have input before from the drop-down list.
  • (Optional) If you would like to convert a web page which is saved as a HTML file (*.html, *.htm, *.shtml) in your local disk, click Browse to choose the file.
  • Click Settings to specify the settings about conversion and page layout.
  • Click Create.
• The converted PDF file will be opened in Foxit PhantomPDF Mac automatically. Click the Save button  (or File > Save) to save the file.

Tip: While creating a PDF from a webpage which requires login, only the login page will be converted to PDF. For example, when you try to create a PDF from Foxit Support Ticket webpage (https://tickets.foxitsoftware.com/create.php) which requires you to log in to your Foxit Account, the contents in the login page will be converted to PDF (as shown below).

Create a PDF from Scanner

Foxit PhantomPDF Mac allows you to create a PDF directly from a paper document using your Image Capture (ICA) scanner driver.

Scan with Custom Settings

• Do any of the following:
  • Choose File in the Ribbon > Create > From Scanner group > From Scanner button > Scan.
  • Choose File menu > Create > From Scanner.
  • Choose Convert or Home > From Scanner > Scan.
• In the Scan dialog box, select a scanner and related options:
  • Configure scanner
    • Prompt to scan more pages: Select this option, a dialog box will pop up to ask you whether to scan more pages whenever the scanning completes. If the option is unselected, for single-sided scanning, you'll not be prompted once the scanning completes.
    • Sides: Specify single or double-sided scanning. If you select Both Sides but the settings of the scanner are for only one side, the scanner setting overrides the Foxit settings.
    • Source: Select the input source for scanning, including Feeder and Flatbed. If documents are placed in both feeder and flatbed, both of them will be scanned, but the one in feeder will be scanned first by default.
    • Color Mode: Select a basic color mode (Color, Black and White, or Grayscale) supported by your scanner.
    • Paper Size: Select a paper size.
    • Resolution: Select a resolution supported by your scanner.
  • Output
    • New PDF Document: Output the scanning results as a new PDF document.
    • Append: Append the converted scan to an existing PDF file. After selecting this option, click Browse to find and select an existing PDF file from your local disk.
  • Optimize Scanned PDF
    • Reduce size and optimize: Check this item and click Options to customize compression and filtering. The Optimization Options dialog box for image settings controls how scanned images are compressed for the PDF.
      • Color/Gray settings: When scanning color or gray pages, select JPEG, JPEG2000(Lossless) or JPEG2000(Lossy) to apply JPEG compression to the entire gray or RGB input page. Select High-Compression to apply image compression in high-quality with small size.
      • Low/High Quality: Drag the slider to set the balance point between file size and quality.
      • Monochrome: When scanning black-and-white or monotone images, select one of the following:
        • JBIG 2(Lossless)/ JBIG2(Lossy): Apply an image compression standard for bi-level images which is suitable for lossless or lossy compression.
        • CCITT Group 4: Apply CCITT Group 4 compression to black-and-white input page images.
        • High-Compression: Apply to high-quality with small size compression.
      • Deskew: Choose On to automatically rotate any page so that the text is vertically aligned, which is of great use for cleaning up scanned PDFs.
    • Make Searchable (Run OCR): Check this item and click Options to run OCR on scanned PDFs. Please refer to "Recognize Text" for more information.
• (Optional) If you want to save the current scanning settings as a preset, click Save as Preset in the Scan dialog box. Then input the preset name, and click Save.
• Click Scan.
• When prompted whether to scan more pages or reverse sides (available if you chose Both Sides in the Sides option), choose a desired option, and click OK.
• When the scanning is complete, the new scanned PDF or the existing PDF with the scanned pages appended at the end will automatically be opened, with the Post-Scan Options panel displayed on the right of the document pane. In the Post-Scan Options panel, choose any of the options below to manage the scanning results, if necessary.
  • Optimize Scanned PDF: Optimize the scanned PDF for a smaller size and better display effect. See also "Optimize Scanned PDF".
  • OCR Current File: Run OCR in the current scanned PDF after saving the document. See also "Recognize Text".
  • Page Organize: Open the Organize toolbar for you to organize your PDF pages. See also "Organize PDF Pages".
  • Grayscale/ Black & White: Adjust the color mode of the scanned PDF. You can change the mode from Color to Grayscale/ Black & White, or from Grayscale to Black & White; but not the reverse.
  • Edit Document Information: Modify the scanned document information including Author, Title, and File name.
• Click the Save button  (or File > Save) to save the scanned PDF file.

Scan with a Configured Preset

If you have saved your previous scanning settings as presets or configured scanning presets, all your presets will be displayed in the From Scanner drop-down list in the Convert tab. You can choose any of the presets to scan a paper document to PDF with just one click.

Configure Scanning Presets

Create a Scanning Preset

• When you create a PDF from a scanner with custom settings, you can save your custom scanning settings as a preset in the Scan dialog box. Please refer to "Save as Presets" for details.
• Choose From Scanner > Manage presets in the Convert / Home tab or File tab to open the Manage Presets dialog box, and then click Create to create a new scanning preset. Please refer to “Scan with Custom Settings” for more information about how to configure the scanning options.

Manage Scanning Presets

• Do any of the following:
  • Choose File in the Ribbon > Create > From Scanner group > From Scanner button > Manage Presets.  
  • Choose Convert or Home > From Scanner > Manage presets.
• In the Manage Presets dialog box, select the scanning preset that you want to manage, and do the following.
  • To edit the preset, click Edit, and follow the instructions in "Scan with Custom Settings" to configure the scanning options.
  • To delete the preset, click Delete.
  • To re-order the preset shown in the From Scanner drop-down list, click Move Up or Move Down.
  • Upon completion, click Close to close the Manage Preset dialog box.

Print to PDF

When you have installed Foxit PhantomPDF Mac on your device, you can use the Print to PDF feature to save a document as PDF from any application that uses the system print dialog in your Mac device. Steps are as follows:

• Open a file in your macOS application.
• Click File > Print.
• Choose Save as Foxit PDF from the PDF dropdown list.
• Specify the file name and location to save the converted PDF file.

Convert and Export PDF Files

Foxit PhantomPDF Mac allows users to convert a PDF to Microsoft Office, image, HTML, or text file.

• Click Convert.
• If you try to convert and export a scanned PDF file or an image-based PDF file, recognize the text in the PDF file to make it searchable or editable first. Please refer to OCR PDF Files for more information.

• In the Convert tab, select one of the following options:
  • To MS Office: Convert the PDF to Microsoft Word/Excel/PowerPoint. 
  • To Image: Convert the PDF to image as a PNG, JPEG, JPEG2000, TIFF, or BMP file.
  • To HTML: Export the PDF file as a HTML file which could be opened in your browser.
  • To Others: Convert the PDF file as a plain text or rich text file.
• In the pop-up setting dialog box, specify the page range and export settings, and click OK.
• In the Save as dialog box, specify the file name and location, and click Save.

Create and Customize a PDF Portfolio

PDF portfolios are a combination of files with different formats such as Microsoft Office files, text documents and image files. Foxit PhantomPDF Mac lets you quickly create and customize a PDF portfolio.

Create a PDF Portfolio

You can use Foxit PhantomPDF Mac to quickly create a blank PDF portfolio or a new PDF portfolio from any file. After creation, you can also add more files/folders, create folders, delete files/folders and more within the PDF portfolio.

Create a Blank PDF Portfolio

• Do any of the following:
  • Choose File in the Ribbon > Create > PDF Portfolio > Blank Portfolio.
  • Choose File menu > Create > Create a blank PDF Portfolio.
  • Choose Convert > PDF Portfolio > Create a blank PDF Portfolio.
• A blank PDF portfolio will be created and opened in Foxit PhantomPDF Mac. You can add files and folders to the PDF portfolio, if necessary. For more information, please refer to “Add Files and Folders in a PDF Portfolio”.

Create a PDF Portfolio from Files

• Do any of the following:
  • Choose File in the Ribbon > Create > PDF Portfolio > Portfolio.
  • Choose File menu > Create > Create a new PDF Portfolio.
  • Choose Convert > PDF Portfolio > Create a new PDF Portfolio.
• In the pop-up dialog box, select the files that you want to attach to a PDF portfolio from your local disk, and click Open.

Customize a PDF Portfolio

When a PDF portfolio is created and opened in Foxit PhantomPDF Mac, the Portfolio tab will be displayed for you to customize a PDF portfolio.

Add Files and Folders in a PDF Portfolio

• In the Portfolio tab, click Create Folder to create a new folder within the PDF portfolio. Click Add Files, Add Open Files, or Add Folder to add your local files, opened files, or folders (including its subordinate folders) to the PDF portfolio respectively.
• In the Layout or Detail view mode, right-click on the blank area or any file in a PDF portfolio, and choose the corresponding option from the context menu to create folders or add files/folders to the PDF portfolio.

Remove Files and Folders in a PDF Portfolio

In the Layout or Detail view mode, do any of the following to remove a file or folder from a PDF portfolio.

• Right-click the file or folder that you want to remove, and choose Delete from the context menu.
• Select the file or folder that you want to remove, and click the Delete button .

Extract Files or Folders from a PDF Portfolio

You can extract files or folders in the PDF portfolio and save them in your local disk. Steps are as follows:

• In the Layout or Detail view mode, do any of the following:
  • Right-click the files or folders that you want to extract, and choose Extract from Portfolio.
  • Select the files or folders that you want to extract, and then click the Extract button .
• In the pop-up dialog box, do the following:
  • When extracting files, specify the file name and location to save the files, and click Save.
  • When extracting folders, select the local folder that you want to save the extracted folders, and click Open.

Validate and Create PDF/A-, PDF/E-, and PDF/X-compliant Files

With Foxit PhantomPDF Mac, you can validate PDF contents against PDF/A, PDF/E, and PDF/X standard, and create industry compliant PDF files for archiving, engineering, and print production.

Validate PDFs against PDF/A, PDF/E, or PDF/X Standard

• Click Convert > Preflight.
• In the Standards Validation and Creation dialog box, do the following:
  • In the Profiles tab, expand a compliance profile, and choose the desired verification profile (Verify compliance with <compliance_name> option).
  • By default, Foxit PhantomPDF Mac will perform preflight on all pages and display the analysis results. To perform preflight on specific pages, specify the page range in Preflight only pages item.
  • Click Analyze to verify the PDF file.
  • Check the validation results in Results tab, and click Create Report to save the validation report.

Convert PDFs to PDF/A, PDF/E, or PDF/X

Convert PDFs to PDF/A, PDF/E, or PDF/X Using a Profile

• Click Convert > Preflight.
• In the Standards Validation and Creation dialog box, do any of the following:
  • In the Profiles tab, expand the compliance profile, and select the desired conversion profile (Convert to <compliance_name> option). If you want to check the analysis results after conversion, make sure that you have checked the Display Analysis Result option. Then click Analyze and fix to convert and save the file.
  • In the Standards tab, select the desired standard (Save as <Compliance_name> option) > click Continue > select the desired version > click Save as to convert and save the file.
• (Optional) The converted file will be opened with Foxit PhantomPDF Mac automatically. If you choose to view the analysis results during conversion, check the analysis results and create analysis report in the Results tab of the Standards Validation and Creation dialog box.

Save PDFs as PDF/A, PDF/E, or PDF/X

When reading a PDF document in Foxit PhantomPDF Mac, you can save the PDF document as a copy which is compliant with PDF/A, PDF/E, or PDF/X standard on your local disk. Steps are as follow:

• Choose File > Save as.
• Select a folder from your computer.
• In the pop-up dialog box, choose PDF/A (*.pdf), PDF/E (*.pdf), or PDF/X (*.pdf) from the file type drop-down list, specify the file name, and click Save.
• In the Standards Validation and Creation dialog box, choose the desired version, and click OK.

Remove PDF/A, PDF/E, or PDF/X Information

• Click Convert > Preflight.  
• In the Standards Validation and Creation dialog box, do the following:
  • In the Profiles tab, expand the compliance profile, and select the Remove <compliance_name> information option you want.
  • If you want to check the analysis results, please make sure that you have checked the Display Analysis Result option.
  • Click Analyze and fix. 
• In the pop-up dialog box, specify the file name and location, and click Save to save the updated file.
• (Optional) If you choose to display the analysis results, the results will be displayed in the Results tab when the operation finishes. Click Create Report in the Results tab to save the analysis report, if needed.

OCR PDF Files

OCR (Optical Character Recognition) is a software process that enables images or printed text to be translated into machine-readable text. OCR is most commonly used on scanned PDF documents to make the text searchable or editable.

Quick OCR

You can click Home or Convert > Quick OCR to recognize all pages of a scanned or image-based PDF with default or previous settings by one-click.

Recognize Text

To recognize image-based or scanned text in a PDF file, please do the following:

• Click Convert > OCR, and choose Current File to recognize text in the current file, or choose OCR > Multiple Files to recognize text in multiple PDF files. 

• (Optional) In the OCR Multiple Files dialog box, do the following:
  • Click Add files, and choose Add Files, Add Folder, or Add Open Files to add a file, folder, or opened file.
  • After adding the files, use the Move up or Move down button to reorder the files, if necessary.
  • Click Remove to remove the added file from the list, if necessary.
  • Click Output Options to select the destination folder, and choose how to name the new file and whether to overwrite an existing one.
  • Click OK.
• In the Select OCR Engine dialog box, do the following:
  • Specify the page range to be OCRed.
  • Select the language (s) used in your document.

    Tip: For some languages, you will need to download the language packs as prompted when OCRing the document.

  • Choose the output type:
    • Searchable Text Image: Makes the image text searchable.
    • Editable Text: Makes the image text editable.
  • Check Find All Suspects (Show all OCR results that may need to be changed.) option if you want the OCR suspects to be displayed for you to check and correct after the recognition.
  • Click OK to start text recognition.

• (Optional) If you checked Find All Suspect (Show all OCR results that may need to be changed.) option, the OCR suspects will be enclosed in red boxes for you to check and correct after the recognition completes. Follow the steps in Find and Correct OCR Suspects to check and correct the suspects.

Find and Correct OCR Suspects

After recognizing image-based or scanned text in the PDF file, you can pick out and correct the text or characters that are uncertain.

• Click Convert > Suspect Result, and choose one of the following options:
  • First Suspect: Highlight the first suspect in red box.
  • All Suspects: Highlight all the suspects in red boxes. 
• In the Find OCR Suspects panel, both the original document text and OCR text will be displayed. You can do the following:
  • If necessary, edit the text in the Recognize as text box.
  • If the highlighted text is incorrectly identified, click Not Text.
  • Click Accept to accept the suspect and find the next one.
  • Click Find Next to find the next suspect.
• Upon completion, click the Close button to close the Find OCR Suspects panel.