Mac OS X Lion: The Missing Manual

Preview

Preview is Mac OS X’s scanning software, graphics viewer, fax viewer, and PDF reader. It’s always been teeming with features that most Mac owners never even knew were there—but in Lion, it’s been given even more horsepower. In fact, it’s a flagship Lion program, offering all the cutting-edge new features, like Autosave, Versions, and full-screen mode.

Note

Lion Watch: For the first time, Preview can open Microsoft Office documents (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) and iWork documents (Pages, Numbers, Keynote). You can’t edit them in Preview, but you can read them, search them, and print them. No longer must you pay homage to Microsoft’s bottom line just to have a look at the documents people send you.

Importing Camera Photos

Preview can import pictures directly from a digital camera (or iPhone), meaning that there are now three Mac OS X apps that can perform that duty. (iPhoto and Image Capture are the other two.) It’s sometimes handy to use Preview for this purpose, though, because it has some great tools for photos: color-correction controls, size/resolution options, format conversion, and so on.

The actual importing process, though, is exactly like using Image Capture. Connect your camera, choose File→Import from [your camera’s name], and carry on as described on iDVD.

Operating Your Scanner

Preview can also operate a scanner, auto-straighten the scanned images, and export them as PDF files, JPEG graphics, and so on.

This, too, is exactly like using Image Capture to operate your scanner. ...