Getting started

This page takes you from the start screen to a saved document. For a tour of every control in the document window, see The window.

The start screen

When Nixt PDF opens with no document, it shows the start screen:

The recent list only shows files that are still where they were. A file that has been moved, renamed or deleted drops off the list.

Opening a document

1. On the start screen, click Open a PDF or Open a file.
2. In the file dialog (titled Open a document), choose a .pdf file and confirm.

The document opens in its own window view, with the ribbon along the top and the side panel on the left. To open a document you opened before, click it under RECENT.

Nixt PDF checks what a file actually contains, not only its name. A file that is really a Word document, a spreadsheet or a presentation is not opened; the message names the Nixt Office app that opens it.

How a document opens

A PDF can ask to be opened a particular way. Nixt PDF honours two of those requests when it opens the document:

• The page layout — one page, continuous, two pages, or two pages with the cover alone.
• Full screen — the document opens in presentation mode: one page at a time and no buttons. Press Esc to bring the buttons back.

You can change what a document asks for with Pages › How it opens…. See Document information.

Opening a password-protected document

When a document is protected with a password, Nixt PDF asks for it before it shows anything:

1. In the This document is locked dialog, type the password in Password.
2. Click Unlock, or press Enter.

If the password is wrong, the dialog asks again and says That password did not open it. Passwords are exact — check the capitals. You get three tries. The password is checked on your computer and is not sent anywhere.

If you click Cancel, the window shows the document’s name, how many pages are waiting for the password, and two buttons:

• Unlock — asks for the password again.
• Close — goes back to the start screen.

A document protected in a way Nixt PDF can’t open shows the reason instead, with no Unlock button. See Passwords and security for the kinds of protection that open.

Making a PDF from pictures

Use this to turn photographs or scans into one document.

1. On the start screen, click Make one from pictures.
2. In the Choose the pictures dialog, select one or more PNG or JPEG files and confirm.

Nixt PDF puts each picture on its own A4 page, turns each page to suit its picture, and fits the picture inside a small margin. The pages follow the order the file dialog hands the pictures over in.

• One picture makes a document named after the picture.
• Several pictures make a document named Pictures.pdf.

A file that isn’t a PNG or a JPEG is named rather than silently dropped. If some pictures went in and some didn’t, the message at the foot of the window says how many went in and why the first one was left out.

To keep the new document, save it — see the next section.

Saving your work

Nothing you do to a document reaches a file on disk until you save. The window’s bar shows an Unsaved badge while there are changes that haven’t been saved.

Save

Save saves your changes to the file you opened. Click Save on the window’s bar, or press ⌘S (Ctrl+S on Windows and Linux). A document that has no file to go back to — one you made from pictures, or one opened from a location the app can’t write to — asks where to save it the first time, and saves there after that. Save is dimmed when there is nothing new to save, and reads Saving… while it works. When it finishes, the message at the foot of the window says Saved to followed by the location it wrote to.

Save a copy

Save a copy… saves the document, with your changes, under a name and in a folder you choose.

1. Click More on the window’s bar and choose Save a copy…, or on the Home tab click Save a copy… in the Document group.
2. In the Save a copy dialog, choose a folder and a name.
3. Confirm. The message says Saved a copy to followed by the location.

The copy is the document exactly as it is on screen, with every change you have made.

Changes that are written straight into the document

These edits rewrite the whole document rather than adding to it. They clear the undo history, so they can’t be undone, and each says so before or after it happens:

• Redaction, from the Redact tool, the selection bar or Find and redact…
• Password…, Change password… and Remove the password
• Hidden content… › Take it out
• Reduce the size… › Make it smaller, and Shrink the pictures anyway…

Keep a copy of the original before you use them.

Undo

Click Undo on the window’s bar, or press ⌘Z (Ctrl+Z on Windows and Linux). The tooltip on Undo names the change it will take back, for example Undo Highlight. When there is nothing to undo it says Nothing to undo.

• Each change is one undo step, however large. Stamping every page at once, a drag that moves a picture, and accepting six suggested form fields are each one step. Recognise text… and Improve the scan… are the exceptions: they make one step for each page they change.
• Undo can go back through every change you’ve made since the document opened, or since the last change that rewrote the whole document (listed above).

Closing a document

1. Click the back arrow at the left of the window’s bar (tooltip Close document).
2. If there are unsaved changes, the Close without saving? dialog says Your marks on this document will be lost. Click Keep editing to stay, or Discard to close without saving.

You return to the start screen.

Closing the app’s window or quitting the app with unsaved changes asks the same question. Keep editing keeps the app open.

Next steps

• The window — every button on the ribbon and what the side panel shows.
• Reading and navigating — zoom, layouts and moving around a document.
• Comments and markup — marking up a document for review.