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Do More with Preview in Leopard
Posted by Gina Trapani at 1:30 AM on November 7, 2007
Leopard only: Another handy new set of features in Mac OS 10.5 that didn't get much attention arrived in Preview.app, that trusty utility that opens images and PDF files. In Tiger, Preview was mostly a file viewer, but in Leopard, you can edit images, rearrange and merge PDF files, as well as perform batch actions on a set of files. Let's take a look.
With an image (or several images) open, from the Tools menu you can crop, resize, flip and rotate. Choose the "Adjust Color" option to get a transparent palette of colour options, including sharpening, along with an "Auto Levels" button for the lazy ones in the room (like me.)
You can even remove background areas from an image. From the Select tool drop-down, choose "Instant Alpha" to give it a try.
The result with some background removed:
In the PDF department, now you can annotate documents, rearrange pages and merge several PDF's into one (see ya, Combine PDFs!) right in Preview. Here's what a note, highlighted and strike-through text in a PDF looks like:
What are you doing with Preview in Leopard that you've never done before? Let us know in the comments.
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
Harald
Posted 3:07 PM 6/11/07
@Terceiro
I did not really need that feature up to now but doesn't Skim store the annotations in a seperate file and so making it impossible to read them on other platforms? I once got pretty screwed up by that :)
(I am not a programmer, but isn't it possible to write a kind of plugin for Preview that extracts the annotations?)
But anyway, my use for a PDF reader is mainly limited to simply add annotations and remarks and share them with my colleagues.
Also, I like the ultra-slim and streamlined system I enjoy since my Leopard clean-install upgrade and so I am happy with what Preview offers.
Harald
terceiro
Posted 2:47 PM 6/11/07
@Harald: the real benefit of Skim is that you can export just the annotations apart from the original document itself. For reading academic papers, being able to highlight key passages, make marginal notes, and ask questions in the text -- and then to export those to your notes is invaluable. Until I discover how to export my highlighted text and notes out of Preview, Skim reigns supreme.
terceiro
Harald
Posted 2:43 PM 6/11/07
The possibility to insert annotations, remarks and highlights from within preview is definitely very useful.
As much as I liked Skim for this function, in my opinion, the more I can do with the apps that come with my system the better.
Harald
Crazor
Posted 2:40 PM 6/11/07
Another nice feature: Preview now automatically reloads files which were changed from another program. VERY useful for all LaTeX users out there. That LaTeX build script I used under Tiger involved killall Preview.app and open $1.pdf. Problem was that I had to do PDF reading with Adobe Reader while TeX'ing
Crazor
ironchef
Posted 2:34 PM 6/11/07
Preview.app will actually let you batch process entire photolibraries via automator too.
I used automator to tell Preview to help batch downsize photos for emailing all with a simple right mouse click.
ironchef
Ryan.Reed
Posted 1:35 PM 6/11/07
This is definitely one of the more useful thing with Leopard. No need to have a separate app just to adjust the size of an image.
Ryan.Reed
landonmiller
Posted 12:09 PM 6/11/07
I knew about the the PDF manipulation, but I haven't played around with it enough to see that you can change the brightness and contrast. This is something that will save me time. Thanks for the tip Gina!
landonmiller
Totorototoro
Posted 4:19 PM 6/11/07
One question about Preview-why doesn't it just read text files too, instead of just images or PDFs? Is there a way to force it to read .txt, .rtf, etc. ? TextEdit pales in comparison for just reading documents.
Totorototoro
MacMary
Posted 4:42 PM 6/11/07
You can find it at www.bean-osx.com/Bean.html
MacMary
MacMary
Posted 4:42 PM 6/11/07
@Totorototoro --
Try the freeware app called Bean. It beats TextEdit by the million.
MacMary
Totorototoro
Posted 9:09 PM 6/11/07
Thanks, MacMary, I'll check it out!
Totorototoro
Zach Everson
Posted 7:52 AM 7/11/07
I'm a big fan of its ability to crop and resize pictures; it's a huge help in my work.
Zach Everson
AREvers
Posted 7:27 AM 8/11/07
One hiccup in the new Preview: You can't print the Notes you add to the document. They seem to live in a separate margin that doesn't merge with the document when you go to print. Anyone figure this out?
AREvers