Leopard's Preview 4.0: Hands-on
updated 04:45 pm EDT, Tue October 2, 2007
Preview 4.0: Hands-on
Preview 4.0, the new version of Apple's application for viewing various image formats, PDF, RTF files and more that will be included with Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) has received an interface makeover that makes it look more like Mail.app, a new sidebar that displays thumbnails of each page in a PDF, new search functionality and more according to a hands-on report from AppleInsider. The new sidebar can be set to any width, and will show multiple rows of thumbnails. There is also a zoom slider, similar to zoom function in iPhoto, that allows the items to grow and shrink instantly. Thumbnails in the sidebar can also be dragged and dropped to be reordered, as well as to add or remove pages from the document. You can also perform search queries from a field in the sidebar, which can then be grouped by relevancy.
There are also new toolbars -- one handles graphics and another handles PDFs. The new PDF toolbar has move, text and select modes, while its annotation features must be manually added to the Toolbar.
Additional graphics tools include annotation with boxes, ovals, free-form arrows and more. You can select a region where a text box will be placed, and also edit the box later. An Image Correction panel uses a translucent panel like iPhoto, and there's size adjustment sheet that at allows resizing of width and height based on percentage, inches or pixels.
Extraction tools have also been built into this release. You can pull an object from its background (akin to a magic wand function), and an Instant Alpha tool. There's an Extract Shape tool that lets you use a translucent red marker to draw around desired shapes in images, with further refinements that let you discard any garbage bits of image surrounding your selection.
The net result is that Preview has become a better PDF reader/editor, and also a very decent photo editing and extraction tool.
[Images courtesy of AppleInsider]
nice
10/02, 05:56pm reply
This looks like a really impressive update to Preview. Finally a bit of positive Apple news.
petsounds
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Apr 2007
Preview in Finder
10/02, 06:06pm reply
Finder needs a new Preview also! M$ actually does viewing content within Explorer Very well. That and their print options are some of their best work.
I hope Apple brings these ideas to Leopard.
MiMiC
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Jun 2007
window printing
10/02, 06:48pm reply
Leopard better includes "print window". It's one of the useful features that doesn't migrate over from OS9.
coffeetime
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Nov 2006
Need to be able to email
10/02, 07:30pm reply
Maybe I've missed it all these years but I don't see any way to email Preview docs directly from the Preview menu, which you can do with Acrobat and it's really useful...
zl9600
Forum Regular
Joined: Oct 2003
lean photo editor
10/02, 08:45pm reply
This is great - a full featured PDF viewer plus a lean photo editor.
bhuot
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Nov 2003
Alpha is Great
10/02, 09:42pm reply
The Alpha feature is new in Keynote. It works impressively well.
surferboy
Mac Enthusiast
Joined: Jul 2003
email direct from preview
10/03, 10:30pm reply
You can email a document directly from Preview and any other Mac app by pressing "print" but instead of printing choose the PDF pop-up button on the lower left side. The second (or third) option is "email PDF" which converts whatever document you have to a PDF, opens your default email program, creates a new msg and places the PDF file inline in the message. Slick.
chas_m
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Aug 2001