Tag: shell

Find fonts used in a PDF file for Mac OS

If you’ve ever needed a quick way to find fonts used in a PDF file on your Mac, you may have seen suggestions to download specific apps like Adobe reader to accomplish this.

While that will work, you can accomplish this with a simple command via the Terminal. To find the fonts used in your PDF, follow the steps below.

Instructions

  • Open up Terminal.app of your command line tool of choice.
  • Note where on your system the PDF is located. If you have it on your Desktop the command below will work easily.
  • Using the code below – edit the path to the file and the filename and hit enter.

That’s it. Using the above techniques will allow you to see all the fonts used in a PDF on a Mac or UNIX system without downloading any 3rd party applications.

Terminal command to get the weather in your area

Ever wanted to get the local weather report via your terminal/shell? With the below shell command you can do so easily.

Add it to your .bash_profile, fill in your zip and location where I’ve noted, and you’ve got the weather report showing in your shell. Simply type weather to run the command after filling in your details.

Resource – Intro to Grunt by Chris Coyier on 24 Ways

Grunt.js

Link:

http://24ways.org/2013/grunt-is-not-weird-and-hard/

Description:

Fantastic resource on getting started with Grunt.js. Practical implementations of script concats, minimizing, and automation. Recommend as a simple resource and starting template for many common web site tasks.

Notes:

Mac OS X Gestures Freeze or Stop Working? Here’s a Quick Fix.

Update: Alfred extension released for those of you who would prefer not to tinker with Terminal. See bottom of this post.

Mac OS X gestures freeze or stop working? Perhaps your hot corners or Launchpad also stopped working? I’ve also experienced this and have a quick one-line fix.

Here’s what usually happens:

  • You’ve been on your Mac for a while and suddenly gestures aren’t working for you.
  • Clicking on “Mission Control” and “Launchpad” don’t work.
  • Hot corners also may not be working during this time.

If you’ve experienced any of the issues with gestures as described above, the good news is there is a quick fix.

What’s the fix?

The fix is to restart or “kill” the dock. This isn’t as scary as it sounds. This won’t close any of your currently running apps, but the dock will disappear for a bit, restart, and then re-appear.

To do this, fire up Terminal and type the following:

killall Dock

That’s it. Your dock will restart and your gestures and hot corners should work again.

What Causes This?

I’m not sure why gestures randomly freeze or stop working. I don’t think it’s a 3rd party software conflict as I’ve had this happen while only running Safari.

I’ve seen a few forum threads from a google search with many users having the same issue, so I assume it will be fixed by Apple as they polish gestures up a bit. If you have any insight or suggestions please do leave them in the comments section.

I’m also considering making an Alfred extension for those of us who don’t always have the Terminal ready and waiting, or, for those who don’t feel comfortable with the Terminal/CLI.

Update: Alfred extension “Mac OS X Gestures Freeze Fix” has been developed and released for all of you Alfred users.

More plugins and Alfred scripts I’ve created can be found at  software.creatingdrew.com.