Converting a Mac Notes document to something Windows-friendly (PDF doesn't work, I've tried)

[AthenaNoctua]

I have created a pictograph board for use in a care home for adults with learning disabilities, using a table of enlarged emoji and accompanying simple text. Problem is that I'm using a Mac and everyone else is running Windows. I could use Parallels to install Windows, but I'm not really sure that would help, and creating a PDF directly from Notes screws up the formatting.

The only way I've done it, which is wholly unsatisfactory, is to take a screenshot, but I would like it to be in a form which can be opened as a document, primarily because a screenshot looks messy and unprofessional.

Is there any universal format which would allow my document to be opened in Word (to give an obvious example), say...? I cannot find a way to directly 'convert' a Notes file to make it compatible with Office 365 (which both I and the recipient use). I am a bear of very little brain and prefer the simplicity of Notes (I did try recreating it in both Word and TextEdit, but the formatting was off). The best version I have is in Notes. The attached screenshot is what happens when I attempt to convert to PDF directly from Notes.

Any ideas...?

Cheers m'dears!

SJ

 

[0128672]

Would you create a numbered list of the specific steps you're using to convert this Notes document to PDF? That would help everyone know better how to help you do this.

 

[AlumaMac]

Hey OP, I recreated your pictograph board in Apple Numbers and it preserves its formatting when exported to PDF (see attached photos). Not sure how the conversion would go if you exported it as an .xls and opened in Excel on Windows but might want to give it a shot.

 

[James_C]

Notes is primarily a note taking app, and from experience has very simple graphic handling tools, to simple for what you are trying to do. I see @AlumaMac has suggested Numbers, but using Pages would probably make more sense as it is still pretty simple, and has proper page payout tools to enable it to reliably export to a PDF file. Pages can also export to Word format as well. Pages has better graphics handling than Word.

 

[ignatius345]

Unless this is somehow a conversion you need to do over and over, just recreate the graphic. It's four emojis and a few words. You could do it in less time than it took to type up this post. Pages would handle it very easily and let you export to PDF.

As a designer, I would also weigh in with this: you don't need those fine lines. They add clutter. Just make sure there's enough space between each emoji/caption pair.

 

[NoBoMac]

What all the others have said.

Will add: can copy/import the table from Numbers/Excel/Calc into Pages/Word/Writer. Or can take a screen grab of the image and import it into what ever document(s) you want. And then can generate your PDF.

But, yeah, Notes is not the tool for something like this.