Being a visually oriented person I often create diagrams to explain aspects of the law. I like using diagrams because they show how the law branches off in different directions and how those separate strands interact with one another. I have found this particularly useful in the past with contract law and I am finding it increasingly useful this semester for equity.

I use OmniOutliner Pro (OOP) to type up my notes in and outside of class (see earlier discussion on the use of OOP). I use OmniGraffle Pro (OGP) to create my full-size horizontally-oriented A4 diagrams (see OGP law school templates).

I like to add these OGP diagrams to my OOP documents as “Pasted Graphics.” I copy my OGP document as a PDF and paste it into OOP (see “Copy As” under the “Edit” menu in OGP). The diagram then appears under the relevant heading in my OOP notes.

While we here at MLS love OmniOutliner, one of its shortcomings, as has been noted previously, is printing. My gripe is that when I print my OOP document, any Pasted Graphics (because they are A4 size) are clipped. Unfortunately OOP doesn’t allow you to re-size “Pasted Graphics” or “Attachments”. I have been told by one of the Omni Group’s “Support Ninjas” that this is a something that they are planning to add in a future version. But even if I could resize the diagrams in OOP, the text on the diagrams would probably become too small to read on the printed page.

Fortunately our old friend Quicksilver (QS) and its handy “comma trick” comes to the rescue.

QS allows you to dig within your OmniOutliner documents to find the Attachments and Pasted Graphics, which you can quickly and easily print in full-size without having to hunt through the Finder. If you are unfamiliar with the “comma trick” please read my Faster Printing with Quicksilver article first, especially regarding set-up.

Below are the step-by-step instructions on how to find your Pasted Graphics or Attachments and print them in one action.

  1. Invoke QS (by default, ?–SPACE).
  2. Type the name of your printer (e.g. “Lexmark”).
  3. Hit the TAB key to select the next pane.
  4. Type “open” and select “Open File”.
    • I recommend making “Open File” the default action for when you type “open”. You can do this by Ctrl clicking “Open File” and selecting ‘Set as Default for “OPEN”.’
  5. Hit TAB again.
  6. Type “oo”. That should bring up “OmniOutliner”. If it doesn’t try typing “omnioutliner”.
  7. Hit the right arrow key on your keyboard.
  8. QS should show a list of your OmniOutliner files.
  9. Select the OmniOutliner file which contains the attachments you wish to print.
  10. Hit your right arrow key again.
  11. QS will now show you the contents of the selected OmniOutliner file. You should see a file called “contents.xml” but also your Pasted Graphic files.
  12. If you are like me and use “Pasted Graphics” copied as “PDFs” then you are looking for the files ending with “.pdf” (but not “.pdf.tiff”). For eg, “1__#$!@%!#__Pasted Graphic.pdf” and “Pasted Graphic.pdf”. If you have attached your files then you should see the original full name of the attachment.
  13. Select one of the files, by highlighting it, either by using your arrow keys or your mouse.
  14. Hit the comma key (”,”).
    • You should see a little icon of the file appear below the file’s name.
  15. Select another file (eg, “2__#$!@%!#__Pasted Graphic.pdf”) and again, hit the comma key.
    • Another little icon of the newly selected file should appear next to the first selected file’s icon.
  16. Repeat steps 13 to 14 for any addition files that you wish to print.
  17. Hit ENTER.

If you don’t want to print the diagrams but just want to open them all in Preview or another application, then skip steps 2 to 5.

It has been pointed out that this trick will not always work with all types of files – particularly Word documents However, the trick works flawlessly with PDFs.

My printed OOP document will still contain the clipped Pasted Graphics, but this little cheat allows me to easily print out all the associated diagrams in full-size. I can then staple the printed diagrams to the back of my printed OOP notes. So when I’m reading through my notes I can easily flick back and forth between my notes and my diagrams.