Mac 101: Preview

Viewing PDF Files

Preview is more than just a PDF viewer—you can bookmark pages, add notes, highlight or copy text, and fill out forms.

• To view a PDF file, just double-click it to open it in Preview. The first page of the file displays in the main window, while a side drawer shows its contents (if the drawer isn't displayed, click the Drawer button at the top of the window.

• To view the PDF's table of contents in the drawer, click the TOC button (the button with four lines). Click the disclosure triangle on any chapter to view a list of its subjects, and select a title to display the page in the window.

• To view thumbnail images of each PDF page in the drawer, click the thumbnails button (the two squares and two lines button). To view a page, select a thumbnail to display the page in the window.

• You can also navigate pages by typing a page number in the Page field, or clicking the Next or Previous buttons.

• If you're having a hard time reading a document, click the Zoom In button to magnify the page.

• If you'd like to bookmark a page so that you can come back to it the next time you open the file, choose Add Bookmark from the Bookmarks menu. In the resulting dialog, type a name for your bookmark and click Add. To open a bookmarked page at any time, choose the page from the Bookmarks menu.

• If you need to fill out information in a PDF form, choose Text Tool from the Tools menu. Then click a field and type in your info. If the field doesn't highlight in blue, the PDF isn't a form that you can fill out.

• To copy text in a PDF document, use the Text Tool (as shown in the previous step), and drag across the text that you want to highlight. Choose Copy from the Edit menu (or press Command-C), and then paste the text in your application of choice.

Viewing Images

Use Preview to look at pictures, edit them, convert them, or view start a photo slideshow.

• To open an image in Preview, open Preview, then drag the image file to the Preview icon in the Dock to display it.

• To edit an image, choose Image Correction from the Tools menu to open the Image Correction window. Then use the Exposure, White Point, Black Point, Saturation, Contrast, Brightness, Sharpness, and other controls to perfect your picture.

• To convert your file to another file format, choose Save As from the File menu. In the resulting dialog, choose the desired format from the Format pop-up menu, type a name for your pending file, and click Save.

• To rotate an image, choose Rotate Left or Rotate Right from the Tools menu.

• If you'd like to view a bunch of images in a slideshow, drag multiple images to the Preview icon in the Dock; the Preview window displays one image while the rest are displayed as thumbnails in the drawer. Then from the View menu, choose Slideshow to start the slideshow.