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The Three Main Views

The document window is divided into three main areas: the Page List View, the Preview Canvas and the Outline List View. These three views make up your main working area for manipulating PDF document content.

The Page List View

The Page List, at the left of the document window, is where you manage your pages: it lists the master pages in your document. It can do this in one of three modes: a page list, a thumbnail view or search view. You can select the mode by clicking one of the three icons above the list. Whereas the page list has a contextual menu that allows a number of powerful operations, the thumbnail view does not, but it can serve as a manner of light-table, with quick previews of multiple pages. The search view shows the search field, where you enter search terms, and a list of occurrences of the search terms and their pages in the document.

Add/Remove pages:

  • Drag and drop any documents from the Finder directly onto the Page List. You can even drop folders and PDF Nomad will import any folder contents that it understands into the document.
  • Drag and drop selected rows within the list to rearrange pages.
  • Drag selected pages from the list to the Finder to export a PDF containing only those pages.
  • Add blank pages by control-clicking the list and then selecting Add Blank Page or Insert Blank Page from the popup menu. Add adds a blank page to the end of the document. Insert inserts a blank page before the first selected page in the list.
  • Remove selected pages by control-clicking the list and selecting Remove Selected Pages from the popup menu.
  • Alternatively, remove pages by selecting them and pressing Command-Backspace.

Edit Source Name and Page Labels:

  • You can tab, shift-tab, return and shift-return to navigate and edit the rows and columns in the list. Tab moves to the next field to the right to edit it, or moves down if already at the last column of the row. Return moves down to the next row. The shift-variants respectively move to the left and up.
  • Batch rename page source or labels by selecting the appropriate item from the contextual menu.

Select Pages:

  • To select a range of contiguous pages: select the top or bottom target page, then drag or shift click to select the page at the other extremity. Alternatively use the up/down arrows while holding down the shift-key to mark a selection.
  • To select discontinuous pages: hold down the command-key while clicking a page to select it. Command clicking a selected page will deselect it.
  • Alter the selection by control-clicking the list and selecting one of the two selection manipulators:
  •     Select Alternating Pages: Selects alternating pages in the list starting from the selected page (or first page if there is no selection). If a multiple page selection already exists, every other page is removed from the selection. You can issue this command several times to progressively thin-out the selection.
  •     Invert Selection: Selects all deselected pages and deselects all currently selected pages.

Merge Pages:

  • You can merge pages side by side, or on top of each other by selecting the pages you wish to combine and issuing the appropriate command from the contextual menu: Merge Selected Pages. To learn how to split or tile pages see below under the Preview Canvas entry.

Page Order:

  • Use Reverse Order of Selected Pages to rearrange the order of the selected pages in reverse.
  • Click the Source or Label column headers to activate (or reverse) sorting based on the column.

The Preview Canvas

The Preview Canvas shows the pages in the document. This is where you view and edit page content. A contextual menu is available with a slew of options on how to view the document in the canvas, and various options to modify pages and their content:

  • Mark with Check Mark: use to enter a check mark in a check box when filling out pseudo-forms.
  • Mark with Cross: use to enter an "x" in a check box when filling out pseudo-forms.
  • Split Pages: The two split pages commands will split pages either horizontally or vertically. After selecting one of these menu items you can drag a divider to decide where the page will be split. The split can be applied to individual pages, or batch applied to all or all selected pages.
  • Tile Pages: This command is used to tile pages by splitting them both horizontally and vertically into multiple parts. You can decide how many columns and rows to create for the split, and specify he amount of overlap between the individual parts.

The Assistant Preview Canvas

The Preview Canvas can be split into two, either horizontally or vertically, offering two independent views of the document. The second, assistant, view cannot be used for editing operations, but it can be useful for reference while reading or working with the default view. The contextual menu on the assistant view (the view on the right) offers a Go to Page menu for quick navigation. Alternatively, having the alternate/option key down while clicking in the page list or the outline list will navigate both the main and the assistant view to the selected page.

To show the assistant view, select the appropriate option from the View->Split menu.

The Outline List View

The Outline List View is where you manage the outlines for the document. It is the list on the right hand side of the document window.

You can create outline items manual or have them created automatically based on a table of contents, if present, in the document. Items can be reordered and put in a hierarchy by dragging them around, or with keyboard shortcuts.

There is also a Find and Replace contextual menu, that provides access to powerful batch find and replace functionality.