Whoops, forgot to say OS 10.6.2 MacBook Pro 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Preview is problematic on my computer, because frequently a grey screen is all that is displayed when I open something in Preview. However, by using "Print" command in Preview the item I have opened will print.
I haven't been disciplined enough to not what does and what does not behave this way - my exasperation level is usually too high - but it includes photos exported from iPhoto to the desktop as well as jpg and tif and tiff. Regards, Michael Hawkins. On 18/3/10 9:24 AM, "Ronda Brown" <ro...@mac.com> wrote: > Hi People, > > After Peter's comments about Preview, I felt perhaps some people are unaware > of what a very good application Preview is. > Quite some time ago Kirk McElhearn, Macworld published this article. > In the original document there are a couple of images, which I have excluded > due to WAMUG Mailing list not wanting attachments sent to the List. > --------- > Preview¹s hidden powers > 8 things you didn¹t know you could do with this built-in tool > > by Kirk McElhearn, Macworld.com > > Apple¹s Preview is more than just a fast and efficient program for reading > PDFs, viewing graphics, and running slide shows. The version that comes with > Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) has some powerful features stashed away in its menus. > Now you can enhance your images, annotate and merge PDFs, print multiple > images on one page, and moreall without opening a specialised (and often > expensive) image editor or PDF tool. Read on to discover eight great things > you can do with Preview. > > 1. Annotate PDFs > One of the best things about Adobe¹s Portable Document Format (PDF) is that it > allows you to share documents while making sure that everyone sees the same > layout, even if the recipients don¹t own the software that created the > document. You can create PDF files from the Print dialog box of any Mac OS X > program and then send them to friends and colleagues. In the past, if you had > detailed comments about the PDFs your colleagues sent you, you were stuckyou > couldn¹t change the text, so you had to put your suggestions in another file, > such as an e-mail message. Alternatively, someone in your group had to buy a > copy of Adobe¹s $449 Acrobat Professional 8 to allow you all to add comments > directly to the file. > > But Leopard¹s Preview lets you add notes, highlight and strike through text, > or use ovals and rectangles to call attention to specific sections of the > page. You can even add links to other pages in a document or to Web sites. > Best of all, other PDF readersincluding both Mac OS X and Windows versions of > Adobe Acrobat Readercan view all of these annotations. > > To begin, open any PDF in Preview and then choose Tools: Annotate. A submenu > gives you four options: Add Oval, Add Rectangle, Add Note, and Add Link. Use > either the oval or the rectangle shape to draw attention to specific elements > on the page (see ³Share Comments²). Select the one you want in the menu and > then click and drag to draw. Select the shape on the page and drag it around > to position it precisely, or drag one of its corners to resize it. > > Share Comments: Preview lets you mark up your documents through a variety of > annotation tools, including ovals and notes. > > To add comments, choose Add Note and then click where you want the note to > appear; you¹ll see a small yellow icon that looks like a speech bubble. Place > this wherever you like. Enter your text in the yellow box that appears in the > margin. To move a note¹s icon later, double-click on it. A dark box around the > icon means that it¹s selected. You can then drag it to a new location. > > Want to link to a Web page that explains something in more depth, or to a note > or table at the end of a document? Choose Add Link and then click and drag to > create a link box over the text or area you want to link to something else. > (You can also select some text and then choose Add Link, to have the link > applied to the selected text.) When you do this, an Inspector appears, with > the Annotations tab selected. Click on the Action menu and choose either Link > Within PDF if you want to link to another page in the document, or URL to link > to an external Web page. To complete the link within your document, scroll to > the page you want as the target and then click on Set Destination. To link to > a URL, type the full address in the URL text field (including http:// ) and > click on Set URL. Save and close the file, and when you reopen it, the link > will be active. > > One big downside to using Preview¹s links is that they aren¹t indicated in > PDFs. (If you happen to pass a cursor over the spot, it will change from an > arrow to a hand.) Make sure readers don¹t miss yours by underlining the text > or highlighting the area with an oval or rectangle. > > To mark up the text, select some text in the document and then choose Tools: > Mark Up. (Hold down the option key while selecting, to choose text in a > column.) Pick from options including Highlight Text, Strike Through Text, and > Underline Text. Unfortunately, you can¹t replace or add text in-line (in other > words, you can¹t replace or directly add to any part of the text). You have to > indicate those changes in a note. > > If you need to edit your annotations later, open the document again, choose > View: Sidebar, and then, from the pop-up menu at the bottom of the sidebar, > choose Annotations. Click on one of your annotations in the sidebar to make it > active; you can now edit, move, or delete it. To edit links, select the > Include Links option at the top of the sidebar, and click on a link to edit it > in the Inspector. > > 2. Delete or Rearrange PDF Pages > When you open a multipage PDF in Preview, you may find that you want to delete > extraneous pages or change the order of pages. You can do this easily: display > the sidebar if it¹s not visible (press Command-shift-D if it¹s not), and then > select a page and press Command-delete. To move a page, select it and drag it > to the desired location. You can even add blank pages, if you want: select the > page after which you want to add a blank page, and then choose Edit: Insert > Blank Page. > > 3. Merge PDFs > What if you have two PDFs, and you¹d like to make a single document or move > pages from one file to another? Before Leopard, you could do this only in > Acrobat Professional or with a utility like MonkeyBread Software¹s free > Combine PDFs. Now Preview makes it a piece of cake. Open both PDFs and make > sure the sidebar is visible. Drag a page from one document¹s sidebar to > another, and drop it in the appropriate location. To add an entire document, > you can drag the file¹s proxy icon (the icon in the title bar) to any location > in the other document¹s sidebar. > > 4. Crop and Resize Images > Say you need to quickly resize or crop an image to send to a friend or post on > your blog. There¹s no need to open an image editorPreview¹s image-editing > features can do the trick. To crop an image, open it and then click on the > Select button in the toolbar (if you don¹t see a square on this button, click > and hold it and choose Rectangular Selection). Click and drag to create a > rectangle around the area you want to crop. You can resize this rectangle by > dragging one of its corners, or you can move it if you need to. Then choose > Tools: Crop or press Command-K. If you like what you see, save the file; if > not, press Command-Z to go back to the original image. > > You can then resize your image and even change its resolution. Choose Tools: > Adjust Size to enter a width or height in pixels, inches, or other units > (choose the unit you want from the pop-up menu to the right of these fields). > To maintain the image¹s proportions, make sure to select the Scale > Proportionally option. To make an image smaller without losing quality, keep > Resample Image selected. > > 5. Quickly Mask Part of Your Image > Sometimes you have a picture of a person or an object that¹s in front of a > confusing background, and you¹d really like to see that person without the > clutter. Preview has two nifty features that let you do thisInstant Alpha and > Extract Shape. To use the first, open a picture and then click and hold the > Select button in Preview¹s toolbar. From the menu that appears, choose Instant > Alpha. Next, click and drag to remove background areas of the image. Start by > dragging small areas to see how Preview expands the selection. You don¹t have > to get everything in one passjust click and drag again to add to your > selection. If you make a mistake, press the escape key to remove the selection > altogether or option-drag to deselect particular areas. When you¹ve > highlighted everything you want to remove, press return to crop the background > from your picture. > > Using Extract Shape is even easier. Choose it from the Select button menu, and > then start drawing a line around the item you want to retain in your picture. > As you do this, a thick red line follows your cursor. Make sure to draw > entirely around the item you want to keep; continue until you¹ve joined the > beginning and end of your line. You¹ll then see a number of handles on the > line. Move any of these if you need to improve part of your outline. Don¹t > worry about drawing perfectly. The magic starts when you press returnPreview > calculates what to keep, and removes your picture¹s background. In many cases, > you¹ll be able to crop out all the dreck the first time, though with some > pictures you may need to repeat the process a couple of times. > > 6. Adjust Image Colour and More > Adjust Colours: Don¹t bother opening an image editor when you need to make a > few enhancements to your picture. Preview¹s Adjust Colour palette lets you > tweak colours, brightness, and more. > > Programs such as Apple¹s iPhoto offer tools to adjust image colour, > brightness, and exposure, but what if you simply want to adjust a single image > without adding it to your iPhoto library, or you don¹t have the iLife suite. > Open the image in Preview and then choose Tools: Adjust Colour. The tools in > this palette let you tweak your picture¹s colour balance and brightness and > even add a sepia tone to it (see ³Adjust Colours²). Move the different sliders > to see, in real time, what your picture will look like if you save your > changes. For pictures that are too dark or overexposed, try clicking on the > Auto Levels button to see if that fixes them. > > 7. Print Multiple Images per Page > It¹s a shame to waste a lot of paper printing a handful of images one to a > page. While many programs let you print a bunch of images on a page, they > typically require multiple steps to do so. Preview has a printing trick that > does it automatically. First, put all your images in a single Preview window. > If you already have one image open, display Preview¹s sidebar and then drag > the other images from the Finder to the sidebar. If you don¹t have any images > open, you can open them at once by dragging them all onto Preview¹s icon in > the Dock or in the Finder. Next, select all the images in the sidebar by > clicking on one and then pressing Command-A. Now choose File: Print Selected > Images, or press Command-P. In the dialog box that appears, choose the number > of images you want on each page from the Images Per Page pop-up menu. (Don¹t > see this? Reveal more options by clicking on the disclosure triangle to the > right of your printer¹s name.) You can choose to have multiple copies of each > image if you check the Print N Copies Per Page option; otherwise, each image > is printed once. > > 8. Add Keywords to Your Images or PDFs > Spotlight keywords make it possible for you to find certain files easily by > using a special keyword that other files won¹t contain. For example, if you > add the keyword REPVOLC to that report you are writing about volcanoes, > Spotlight will find it instantly. > > You can add Spotlight comments to any file by selecting it in the Finder, > pressing Command-I, and typing in the Spotlight Comments field. But if you > send files by e-mail or iChat, or even just transfer them over a network, > comments added in this way disappear. To add keywords permanently in Preview, > open the file and select Tools: Inspector (or press Command-I). In the palette > that appears, click on the Spotlight tab. Click on the plus sign (+) to add a > new keyword, and then type your text. You can add as many keywords as you > want. (Note that this doesn¹t work for images in PNG format.) When you¹re > done, save the file. Now these keywords will stay put, no matter where the > file travels. You¹ll find them in the Finder¹s Info palette (Command-I) in the > More Info section, listed under Keywords. > > Cheers, > Ronni > > 17" MacBook Pro Intel Core 2 Duo > 2.4 GHz / 4GB / 800MHz / 500GB > OS X 10.6.2 Snow Leopard > Windows 7 Ultimate (under sufferance) > > > > > > -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- > Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> > Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> > Unsubscribe - <mailto:wamug-unsubscr...@wamug.org.au> > W -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> Unsubscribe - <mailto:wamug-unsubscr...@wamug.org.au>
