.gif)
Preview (software)
Encyclopedia
Preview is Mac OS X
's application for displaying images and Portable Document Format
(PDF) documents. Like Mac OS X itself, it comes from NeXT
's OPENSTEP
operating system
.
Preview employs Apple's implementation of Adobe's PDF specification, and makes significant use of Apple's Aqua graphical user interface
, Quartz
graphics layer, and the ImageIO and CoreImage frameworks
This gives users the ability to open a wide variety of popular and many of the rarer image files they may encounter during normal usage.
tools using Core Image
processing technology implemented in Mac OS X, and other features like shape extraction, color extraction, cropping, and rotation tools. Also, some features which are otherwise only available in professional PDF editing software are provided by Preview: It is possible to extract single pages out of multi-page documents (e.g. PDF files), sort pages, and drag & drop single or multiple pages between several opened multi-page documents, or into other applications, such as attaching to an opened email message.
Preview can also encrypt PDF documents, and restrict their use; for example, it is possible to save an encrypted PDF so that a password is required to copy data from the document, or to print it. However, encrypted PDFs cannot be edited further, so the original author should always keep an unencrypted version.
PDF and TIFF documents can also be annotated
and supplied with keywords, and are then automatically indexed using OS X's system-wide Spotlight
search engine.
OCR
PDF document creation —usually from scanned physical documents— in order to make their text searchable, is not available with Preview. Though sometimes the scanner or all-in-one printer used to obtain the document image often has some manufacturer software to do this.
Some aspects of the Adobe Reader's functionality introduced in more recent releases (from Reader v8 onwards) are not supported in Preview yet. For example, forms can now be created in Adobe Acrobat
that have dynamic content fields such as drop-downs and check-boxes. Preview will display these fields as static images without interactivity.
, for example scanned photos.
Beginning with Max OS X 10.7 Lion, Preview restricts the Format option in the Export dialog to commonly used types. It is possible to access the full format list by holding down the Option key when clicking the Format dropdown. (GIF, ICNS, JPEG, JPEG-2000, Microsoft BMP, Microsoft Icon, OpenEXR, PDF, Photoshop, PNG, SGI, TGA, TIFF)
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
's application for displaying images and Portable Document Format
Portable Document Format
Portable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
(PDF) documents. Like Mac OS X itself, it comes from NeXT
NeXT
Next, Inc. was an American computer company headquartered in Redwood City, California, that developed and manufactured a series of computer workstations intended for the higher education and business markets...
's OPENSTEP
OpenStep
OpenStep was an object-oriented application programming interface specification for an object-oriented operating system that used a non-NeXTSTEP operating system as its core, principally developed by NeXT with Sun Microsystems. OPENSTEP was a specific implementation of the OpenStep API developed...
operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
.
Preview employs Apple's implementation of Adobe's PDF specification, and makes significant use of Apple's Aqua graphical user interface
Aqua (user interface)
Aqua is the GUI and primary visual theme of Apple Inc.'s Mac OS X operating system. It is based around the theme of water, as its name suggests, with droplet-like elements and liberal use of translucency and reflection effects...
, Quartz
Quartz (graphics layer)
Quartz specifically refers to a pair of Mac OS X technologies, each part of the Core Graphics framework: Quartz 2D and Quartz Compositor. It includes both a 2D renderer in Core Graphics and the composition engine that sends instructions to the graphics card...
graphics layer, and the ImageIO and CoreImage frameworks
Supported file types
Preview can open the following file types:- AIAdobe Illustrator ArtworkAdobe Illustrator Artwork is a proprietary file format developed by Adobe Systems for representing single-page vector-based drawings in either the EPS or PDF formats...
- Adobe Illustrator Artwork files - BMP – Windows Bitmap files
- DNGDigital Negative (file format)Digital Negative is an open raw image format owned by Adobe used for digital photography. It was launched on September 27, 2004. The launch was accompanied by the first version of the DNG specification, plus various products including a free of charge DNG Converter utility...
– Digital Negative files - DAECOLLADACOLLADA is a COLLAborative Design Activity for establishing an interchange file format for interactive 3D applications. COLLADA is managed by the nonprofit technology consortium, the Khronos Group....
- Collada 3D files - EPSEncapsulated PostScriptEncapsulated PostScript, or EPS, is a DSC-conforming PostScript document with additional restrictions which is intended to be usable as a graphics file format...
– Encapsulated PostScript files (after an automatic conversion to PDF) - FAXFaxFax , sometimes called telecopying, is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material , normally to a telephone number connected to a printer or other output device...
– faxes - FPXFlashPixFlashPix is a bitmapped computer graphics file format where the image is saved in more than one resolution. Though this makes it larger even than a TIFF file, when a request is sent for the file by a Web browser only the resolution required for the current screen resolution is sent to the browser;...
– FlashPix files - GIF – Graphics Interchange Format files
- HDRHigh dynamic range imagingIn image processing, computer graphics, and photography, high dynamic range imaging is a set of techniques that allows a greater dynamic range between the lightest and darkest areas of an image than current standard digital imaging techniques or photographic methods...
– High Dynamic Range Image files - ICNSApple Icon ImageThe Apple Icon Image format is the icon format used in Apple Inc.'s Mac OS X. It supports icons of 16×16, 32×32, 48×48, 128×128, 256×256 and 512×512 pixels, with both 1- and 8-bit alpha channels and multiple image states...
– Apple Icon Image files - ICOICO (icon image file format)The ICO file format is an image file format for computer icons in Microsoft Windows. ICO files contain one or more small images at multiple sizes and color depths, such that they may be scaled appropriately...
– Windows icon files - JPEG 2000JPEG 2000JPEG 2000 is an image compression standard and coding system. It was created by the Joint Photographic Experts Group committee in 2000 with the intention of superseding their original discrete cosine transform-based JPEG standard with a newly designed, wavelet-based method...
– JPEG 2000 files - JPEGJPEGIn computing, JPEG . The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image quality. JPEG typically achieves 10:1 compression with little perceptible loss in image quality....
– Joint Photographic Experts Group files - OpenEXROpenEXROpenEXR is a high dynamic range imaging image file format, released as an open standard along with a set of software tools created by Industrial Light and Magic , released under a free software license similar to the BSD license....
– OpenEXR files - PSPostScriptPostScript is a dynamically typed concatenative programming language created by John Warnock and Charles Geschke in 1982. It is best known for its use as a page description language in the electronic and desktop publishing areas. Adobe PostScript 3 is also the worldwide printing and imaging...
– Adobe PostScript files (after an automatic conversion to PDF) - PSDAdobe PhotoshopAdobe Photoshop is a graphics editing program developed and published by Adobe Systems Incorporated.Adobe's 2003 "Creative Suite" rebranding led to Adobe Photoshop 8's renaming to Adobe Photoshop CS. Thus, Adobe Photoshop CS5 is the 12th major release of Adobe Photoshop...
– Adobe Photoshop files - PICTPICTPICT is a graphics file format introduced on the original Apple Macintosh computer as its standard metafile format. It allows the interchange of graphics , and some limited text support, between Mac applications, and was the native graphics format of QuickDraw.The original version, PICT 1, was...
– QuickDrawQuickDrawQuickDraw is the 2D graphics library and associated Application Programming Interface which is a core part of the classic Apple Macintosh operating system. It was initially written by Bill Atkinson and Andy Hertzfeld. QuickDraw still exists as part of the libraries of Mac OS X, but has been...
image files - PDFPortable Document FormatPortable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
– Portable Document Format files - PNG – Portable Network Graphics files
- PNTGMacPaintMacPaint was a bitmap-based graphics painting software program developed by Apple Computer and released with the original Macintosh personal computer on January 22, 1984. It was sold separately for US$195 with its word processor counterpart, MacWrite. MacPaint was notable because it could generate...
– MacPaint Bitmap Graphic files - QTIFQuickTimeQuickTime is an extensible proprietary multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. The classic version of QuickTime is available for Windows XP and later, as well as Mac OS X Leopard and...
– QuickTime image files - RADRadiance (software)Radiance is a suite of tools for performing lighting simulation originally written by Greg Ward. It includes a renderer as well as many other tools for measuring the simulated light levels. It uses ray tracing to perform all lighting calculations, accelerated by the use of an octree data structure...
– Radiance Scene Description files - RAWRAW image formatA camera raw image file contains minimally processed data from the image sensor of either a digital camera, image scanner, or motion picture film scanner. Raw files are so named because they are not yet processed and therefore are not ready to be printed or edited with a bitmap graphics editor...
– Raw image files - SGISilicon Graphics ImageSilicon Graphics Image or the RGB file format is the native raster graphics file format for Silicon Graphics workstations.Common file endings are:*SGI or RGB 3 colour channels*RGBA 3 colour channels and alpha...
– Silicon Graphics Image files - TGATruevision TGATruevision TGA, often referred to as TARGA, is a raster graphics file format created by Truevision Inc. . It was the native format of TARGA and VISTA boards, which were the first graphic cards for IBM-compatible PCs to support Highcolor/truecolor display...
– TARGA image files - TIFTagged Image File FormatTIFF is a file format for storing images, popular among graphic artists, the publishing industry, and both amateur and professional photographers in general. As of 2009, it is under the control of Adobe Systems...
, TIFFTagged Image File FormatTIFF is a file format for storing images, popular among graphic artists, the publishing industry, and both amateur and professional photographers in general. As of 2009, it is under the control of Adobe Systems...
– Tagged Image File Format files - XBM – X BitMap files
This gives users the ability to open a wide variety of popular and many of the rarer image files they may encounter during normal usage.
Features
The version of Preview included with OS X 10.3 could loop animated GIFs via an optional "play" button that could be added to the toolbar. With OS X 10.4, Preview lost playback functionality and animated GIFs would instead display as individual frames in a numbered sequence.Editing features
Preview offers basic image correctionImage editing
Image editing encompasses the processes of altering images, whether they be digital photographs, traditional analog photographs, or illustrations. Traditional analog image editing is known as photo retouching, using tools such as an airbrush to modify photographs, or editing illustrations with any...
tools using Core Image
Core Image
Core Image is a pixel-accurate, near-realtime, non-destructive image processing technology in Mac OS X. Implemented as part of the QuartzCore framework of Mac OS X 10.4 and later, Core Image provides a plugin-based architecture for applying filters and effects within the Quartz graphics rendering...
processing technology implemented in Mac OS X, and other features like shape extraction, color extraction, cropping, and rotation tools. Also, some features which are otherwise only available in professional PDF editing software are provided by Preview: It is possible to extract single pages out of multi-page documents (e.g. PDF files), sort pages, and drag & drop single or multiple pages between several opened multi-page documents, or into other applications, such as attaching to an opened email message.
Preview can also encrypt PDF documents, and restrict their use; for example, it is possible to save an encrypted PDF so that a password is required to copy data from the document, or to print it. However, encrypted PDFs cannot be edited further, so the original author should always keep an unencrypted version.
PDF and TIFF documents can also be annotated
Annotation
An annotation is a note that is made while reading any form of text. This may be as simple as underlining or highlighting passages.Annotated bibliographies give descriptions about how each source is useful to an author in constructing a paper or argument...
and supplied with keywords, and are then automatically indexed using OS X's system-wide Spotlight
Spotlight (software)
Spotlight is a system-wide desktop search feature of Apple's Mac OS X operating system. Spotlight is a selection-based search system, which creates a virtual index of all items and files on the system. It is designed to allow the user to quickly locate a wide variety of items on the computer,...
search engine.
OCR
Optical character recognition
Optical character recognition, usually abbreviated to OCR, is the mechanical or electronic translation of scanned images of handwritten, typewritten or printed text into machine-encoded text. It is widely used to convert books and documents into electronic files, to computerize a record-keeping...
PDF document creation —usually from scanned physical documents— in order to make their text searchable, is not available with Preview. Though sometimes the scanner or all-in-one printer used to obtain the document image often has some manufacturer software to do this.
Some aspects of the Adobe Reader's functionality introduced in more recent releases (from Reader v8 onwards) are not supported in Preview yet. For example, forms can now be created in Adobe Acrobat
Adobe Acrobat
Adobe Acrobat is a family of application software developed by Adobe Systems to view, create, manipulate, print and manage files in Portable Document Format . All members of the family, except Adobe Reader , are commercial software, while the latter is available as freeware and can be downloaded...
that have dynamic content fields such as drop-downs and check-boxes. Preview will display these fields as static images without interactivity.
Import and export
Preview can directly access image scanners supported by OS X and import images from the scanner. Preview can convert between image formats; it can export to BMP, JP2, JPEG, PDF, PICT, PNG, SGI, TGA, and TIFF. Using OS X's print engine (based on CUPS) it is also possible to "print into" a Postscript file, a PDF-X file or directly save the file in iPhotoIPhoto
iPhoto is a digital photograph manipulation software application developed by Apple Inc. and released with every Macintosh personal computer as part of the iLife suite of digital life management applications...
, for example scanned photos.
Beginning with Max OS X 10.7 Lion, Preview restricts the Format option in the Export dialog to commonly used types. It is possible to access the full format list by holding down the Option key when clicking the Format dropdown. (GIF, ICNS, JPEG, JPEG-2000, Microsoft BMP, Microsoft Icon, OpenEXR, PDF, Photoshop, PNG, SGI, TGA, TIFF)
External links
- Apple - Mac OS X - PDF
- AppleInsider review from 2003
- MacProNews article: PDF and Panther: The Hidden Role of PDF in Mac OS X 10.3 from July 2004
- Sams Publishing sample chapter on Preview from Mac OS X Panther Applications and Utilities. Includes some instructions for use, with screenshots.