Mac OS Preview Application – Overlooked Productivity Tips
As a Mac Virtual Assistant, I am constantly on the lookout for better ways to utilize the software native to my Mac.
Preview is something I use multiple times a day, yet it has only been recently that I have been exploring it’s often unexplored features. These are features that, in the past, required the Mac user to install various third party software. For instance, annotation, both with shapes and notes, color and size adjustments, merging and re-arranging pdf pages, and text mark up.
A little known or possibly little used feature that I just used last week is to print multiple images per page. Just go to “File” “Print” and select the number of images per page that you want in the Images per page drop-down menu. 
As a Virtual Assistant, I often find myself designing graphics for clients. I have several Mac graphics programs that do what I need them to do, but sometimes, launching Preview is a lot quicker.
Many times I have an image where I need to remove the background. Preview makes this so easy. Open your image in Preview and choose either Extract Shape or Instant Alpha. Click within your image and watch the transformation. Note that you may not get perfect results with the first few tries, but for most uses, you will be amazed at the results. My personal preference is Instant Alpha as I find this gives more accurate results faster. 
Another Preview feature which I am using quite a lot is annotation. I am often trading pdf’s back and forth with my clients. Many times I want them to be able to quickly jump to highlighted text. Preview makes this so easy:
Go To Tools > Text Tool.
Select all text that you wish to highlight.
Go To Tools > Mark Up, and select one of these options:
Highlight Text: Changes the background color of your selected text.
Strike Through Text: Puts a line through the middle of the selected text.
Underline Text: Underlines your selected text.
If you want a different highlight color, underline, or strike through, Go To Tools > Show Colors.
I am not saying Preview is the only Mac PDF and image tool that you need. I find PDFpen indispensable for other PDF related tasks, such as forms and transparencies. I have been using PDFpen for a few years now and can’t imagine working without it.
However, it is nice to know that you can get maximum functionality out of Mac tools like Preview.
How about you? Do you incorporate the full utilization of Preview in your “Mac Productivity Workout”?
Author bio: Taryn Merrick is a Professional Mac Virtual Assistant, Social Media Virtual Assistant and Eco Virtual Assistant. As Principal of Merrick Management And Media Services, she has over 20 years of administrative management experience. Taryn works to promote the Virtual Assistant industry and to make it stand out as a true profession of excellence. Her style is easy going, yet precise, with emphasis placed on exceeding customer expectations, client communication and satisfaction.
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Tags: Mac Productivity, Mac Software, Macs, Productivity, Virtual Assistance
Oct 14, 2009
Thanks for the Preview tips. I have a question that seems to be floating around the internet as well, though I’ve yet to see an answer for it. I’m familiar with *how* to highlight in Preview; however, sometimes this option is available and sometimes the menu item is greyed out. Does any body know why this is and how to change it. In particular, I was highlight a scientific journal article I had downloaded, but the file was really slow so I thought I’d try to save it instead of working from the Downloads folder. After saving it, I no longer had the option to highlight, what happened??