10 Useful Preview Tips Every Apple User Should Know
Preview is one of the most underrated apps for Mac. At first, you’ll likely only encounter Preview when trying to open images or PDFs, but it offers much more than just file opening. I began exploring Preview’s advanced features ten years ago and found it to be one of the best free PDF editors for Mac. And if you have an iPhone or iPad, you’ll get many of the same benefits with Preview’s mobile version. If you want to get the most out of Preview, here are 10 tips you should know.
Use this shortcut to preview files without opening them in Preview.
It may seem counterintuitive, but one of the best ways to use Preview is to avoid using it when you don’t need it. If you open every app on your Mac every time you need to quickly preview something, you’re probably wasting a lot of time. Instead, you can preview files without opening them. Start by finding the file you want to preview, then select it and press the spacebar. This activates the Quick Look feature, which uses Preview to preview the file without opening it. To close Preview, you can press the spacebar again. I regularly use this for viewing images, PDFs, or even checking the number of files in a folder. If you’re annoyed by Preview’s limitation of not displaying folder contents in Quick Look, you can use the Folder Preview app to add this feature to your Mac.
Change this setting to use the hidden PDF dark mode in Preview.
The Preview app can open PDFs, but these files often have a bright white background—even if your device is in dark mode. If, like me, you dislike reading documents with light backgrounds, there’s good news: Preview lets you use a dark background for PDFs. To try it out, open a PDF in Preview, select View from the menu bar, and then click Use Dark Background for PDF . This will switch the PDF to a dark background with white text, and Preview will remember your setting for all PDFs you open in the future. This feature also works in Preview for iPhone and iPad . Just open a PDF in the app, tap the three dots in the upper-right corner, and select Dark Background .
Use the Open Image from Clipboard feature to edit photos without saving them to your Mac.
Most of us save images to our Macs before opening them with Preview. However, you can skip this step by opening images directly from the clipboard. This way, you can copy an image from any app, including browsers or instant messaging apps, and Preview will instantly open it for editing. Copy any image to your Mac’s clipboard, open Preview, and press Command + N to open the image for editing. Alternatively, you can open Preview and select File > New from Clipboard .
Use this hidden preview option to remove the background of an image.
Most people turn to image editors for relatively simple tasks, such as removing the background from a photo. Preview does a decent job of this, but the feature isn’t immediately obvious when first starting out. You can test it by opening an image in Preview and pressing Command + Shift + K , which should remove the background from the image.
In the Preview app, this feature can be used in two other ways. You can either click Tools > Remove Background in the menu bar or select Remove Background from the app’s toolbar, which is the camera icon with diagonal lines inside its outline. (This was a recent revelation for me, as I didn’t know what the icon did until I accidentally left my cursor on the button and read the tooltip.)
Open PDF files and images in Preview to copy their text.
Preview also makes it easy to copy text from images and PDFs. While text is easy to select in most PDFs, I’ve encountered some where each page is a scanned image, making it difficult to select text. In these situations, Preview can help you easily extract text from images. To use this feature, open an image, screenshot, or PDF in Preview, hover over the text, and double-click or drag the cursor across the text to select it. You can then copy and paste it as needed. This feature works in Preview for iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
Use this setting to turn your iPhone into a dedicated document scanner.
The Preview app for Mac lets you use your iPhone as a document scanner. Open the app and go to File > Import from iPhone > Scan Documents . If your iPhone and Mac are connected to the same iCloud account, this should open the iPhone’s Camera app, automatically set to scan documents. Point the camera at a page, and your iPhone will automatically detect the borders and scan the page. Scanning will continue until you tap the checkmark button in the upper-right corner. Once complete, the document is automatically imported into Preview for Mac, where you can edit the scan before saving. The same scanning mode is available in Preview for iPhone and iPad. Open the app and tap Scan Documents to get started.
Before uploading an image to the internet, display its metadata.
Metadata, such as EXIF data, helps identify important details about a photo, such as when it was taken, what camera and lens were used, where the photo was taken, and so on. The Preview app makes it easy to view this metadata. Simply open any image in Preview and tap the “i” button in the app. On iPhone and iPad, this displays a comprehensive list of all the metadata for the photo. On Mac, you’ll see this data organized into two tabs. Tap the “i” tab to view the remaining metadata in Preview for Mac.
This is a great way to learn more about how your photo was taken. (There’s a lot of data here.) But I also recommend reviewing this data before sharing the image with others or online. If you find too much personal, sensitive, or identifying information, take steps to remove the EXIF data before sharing it online. Before sharing a photo on a Mac, right-click it in Finder, choose Quick Actions > Convert Image , then uncheck “Preserve Metadata.”
Combine multiple PDF pages into one document using the Preview feature.
Preview is a great free PDF editor for iPhone, iPad, and Mac . You can use it to combine multiple PDF pages into a single document or delete pages from a PDF. To use this feature, open a PDF in Preview. If you’re on a Mac, click the sidebar button to the right of the green full-screen button in the toolbar. Select “Thumbnails” and click the small “+” button in the lower left corner. Then select “Insert Page from File…” To delete a page from a PDF, simply select its thumbnail in the left pane and press the Delete key on your Mac’s keyboard.
In the Preview app for iPhone and iPad, open a PDF and swipe right from the left edge of the screen to display page thumbnails in a separate pane. Tap the three dots on any page and select “Insert from File” to merge pages from another PDF. From the same menu, tap “Delete Page” to remove a page from the PDF.
Use the Signature feature in Preview to avoid printing documents.
Preview allows you to digitally sign documents, which can be very convenient. If someone asks you to send a signed copy of a document, you don’t have to print it, sign the file, and then scan it again to send it back. Instead, you can open the file in Preview and click the “Form Filler” toolbar (the rectangle with three dots and a pencil). It appears in the top toolbar in Preview for Mac and in the bottom toolbar in Preview for iPhone or iPad. You can then select “Add Signature” to create your digital signature and quickly sign the document.
Change the permissions of a PDF file to password protect it.
Preview for Mac is also a great tool for adding or removing passwords from your PDFs. To add a password to your PDF, open the document in Preview and select File > Export . Click Permissions , and you’ll be able to add a document-opening password, as well as an owner password for the file, which will prevent others from editing, printing, or copying text from your PDFs without a password. To remove a password from a PDF, open it in Preview on your Mac and go to File > Enter Password . After entering the owner password, select Edit in the right pane to change the document’s permissions. You can use this preferences panel to remove all passwords from the file and save it to your computer.