Creating a PDF using Lightroom 4 or 5

[Mike Buckley]

I came upon an idea in the last few days that has proven to meet my needs -- creating a PDF of a series of photos using Lightroom 4 or 5.

After creating a book using Lightroom's Book module, that module can export the book to a PDF that retains all text, photos and formatting. The primary use of that capability is to proofread the pages before sending the book file on its way to be printed. However, I decided from the outset to create a PDF of my recent trip to Lofoten, Norway without ever printing a book.

The primary advantage is that you can pass along your photos to others in a reasonably polished presentation that includes text, creative layout, page numbers and the like; that's far better in many circumstances than providing only a series of photos. Even if you don't send the PDF to others, it's a nice way of ensuring that certain memories and details of when your images were captured are forever recorded in the text for your own use.

The other advantage is that the pages of the PDF, unlike the pages of a book, will never yellow so long as you maintain a properly profiled and calibrated monitor.

The biggest disadvantage is that whereas a printed book and Lightroom's Book module allow you to display two pages at a time, only one page at a time is displayed in the PDF. EDIT: Thanks to Dave's suggestion, the solution is to configure the reading software (in my case Adobe Reader) to display two pages per screen.

[davidedric]

Sounds interesting, Mike. Assuming you are using Adobe's reader to view the pdf, what happens if you change the View to two pages per screen?

Dave

[Mike Buckley]

That did the trick, Dave. Thanks! I've corrected the first post in the thread.

I suppose I should be embarrassed for not thinking of your solution were it not for the fact that I find almost all software to be so unintuitive that I've given up all hope for myself in that area.