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Preview, the Mac app people forget about

fourth-wall.co.uk

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Re: Preview, the Mac app people forget about

#101

Post by matwood »

jitl wrote: post #7

Preview is one of those essential things that sets macOS apart from the other operating systems, and contributes to that “Mac has good UX” vibe. Last time I opened the Windows equivalent, it tried to sell me on Microsoft’s PDF-alike format… and asked me to connect Office365. Another tiny macOS feature I love is that you can drop a file icon on any Open or Save dialog to select the file in the dialog. On other OSs, th…

Preview is great. Among the many other features, it's also what I use to sign PDFs. You can enter and save a signature using the trackpad or camera and then paste it into any PDF. It looks like you printed, signed, and scanned the PDF back in.

Re: Preview, the Mac app people forget about

#104

Post by layer8 »

wlesieutre wrote: post #19
jitl wrote: post #7

Preview is one of those essential things that sets macOS apart from the other operating systems, and contributes to that “Mac has good UX” vibe. Last time I opened the Windows equivalent, it tried to sell me on Microsoft’s PDF-alike format… and asked me to connect Office365. Another tiny macOS feature I love is that you can drop a file icon on any Open or Save dialog to select the file in the dialog. On other OSs, th…

I can't stand when I have to deal with a PDF on Windows on my office computer where I have the free copy of Acrobat. You can right click on a page and it's got "rotate" buttons up at the top. But when you click on one, it takes a second to think about it and then opens a popup to offer you a free 7-day trial of the Pro version. Rotating a page is too powerful a feature for Adobe to not try and sell it to you. https:/…

You can use the Adobe Reader Classic Track, which is still on the feature level of 2020 and allows counterclockwise rotation: https://www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/acrobatetk/tools/ReleaseNo...

Re: Preview, the Mac app people forget about

#105

Post by AndrewStephens »

data-ottawa wrote: post #88
Tarragon wrote: post #5

It's mentioned heavily in the article but I want to emphasize... Preview is the easiest way to slice up and merge PDF files.

Preview and Automator are a powerful duo. When applying for mortgages I needed a lot of paperwork and it was so nice being able to point Automator to a folder of pdfs and documents and quickly set up a little workflow that collated everything, then it opened the documents in Preview, I fixed a few minor tweaks, signed the forms, and sent them off. It felt like I had superpowers.

I have done exactly this - Automator is the other secret weapon in MacOSX's arsenal.

Downloading a bunch of PDFs from my bank/broker into folder and then running an Automator script to combine them into a single PDF is the only satisfying part of collecting information for my tax return.

Re: Preview, the Mac app people forget about

#106

Post by diegof79 »

herodotus wrote: post #53

I really enjoyed working with the Preview team before I retired from Apple. My small group created a private framework that added "document reconstruction" to PDF documents: basically an inferred DOM based on whatever information (mainly geometric) we could use in the PDF document. Our moment of fame game at WWDC 2009, when Bertrand Serlet talked about Snow Leopard during the Keynote. At around the 5:10 mark he talks…

Thanks for creating that feature. It’s very helpful to highlight and copy notes from multi-column papers!

As others said in this thread… Preview is the best macOS built in app.

Re: Preview, the Mac app people forget about

#107

Post by [deleted] »

em-bee wrote: post #58

every time i open a document with preview, it insists on opening all the documents i had open before. i must be doing something wrong, and find a different workflow, maybe instead of closing the app, i need to manually close each document that i don't need anymore. i guess it's not an issue if you use preview often and keep it running all the time, but i rarely need it since most of what i do is either terminal or br…

[deleted]

Re: Preview, the Mac app people forget about

#108

Post by PeterCorless »

I have no idea why the author says this is an "app people forget about." I use it constantly. Hundreds if not thousands of times a month. It is always open. It is my faithful companion. It flows through my bloodstream. I breathe and dream and gain my nutrients and sunlight via screenshots and edits in Preview.

Re: Preview, the Mac app people forget about

#109

Post by lotsofpulp »

dchest wrote: post #60
lotsofpulp wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any reason it took so long for Microsoft to include print to PDF in Windows other than bad management?

I believe this was due to Adobe threatening them with a lawsuit https://betanews.com/2006/06/02/adobe-to-sue-microsoft-for-p...

According to the article, Adobe helped Apple? But threatened to sue Microsoft? I wonder what the details are.

>However, Adobe has freely offered the specifications on PDF to other companies. Apple’s Mac OS X operating system has built in support for reading and saving of PDF files.

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