Microsoft Tag: Mac, PDF to Bitmap

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Microsoft Tag renders vector version of the colourful tag. This is not conducive to easy use on the web.

A question from @cameronreilly of The Podcast Network via twitter: how do you actually make the Tag useful?

One of the coolest things on MacOS X 10.x is the ability to natively open PDFs. Using this feature, and the inbuilt Apple Preview application: we can generate a bitmap image.

OK, why isn’t bitmap a supported format? Well, please note that Microsoft is taking feedback as the system is only in Beta. And yes, one day Tag will be “released” as Final.

In the short term, here are the steps:

1. Make the Tag after logging in; or select a pre-made Tag; click on the “Render” button on the right hand side of the table:

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2.Choose the Tag format from the pop-up that appears.

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3. On my Mac, Apple’s Preview is set as the default application to open a PDF. Note that the free Adobe Reader does not permit saving as an image (the commercial version does). Opening the PDF is Preview is important.

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4. Within Preview, with the Barcode.pdf open; File>Save As…

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5. And choose “JPEG” (or PNG, GIF: a bitmap format for the web) and save to an appropriate place.

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