OS X El Capitan: The Missing Manual

Preview

Preview is 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 it’s a flagship OS X program, offering all of Apple’s pet cutting-edge features like Auto Save, Versions, Full Screen mode, saving to iCloud (Revert), and a Share button () that lets you send a document to somebody else (Notes on Disk Swapping).

Tip

Preview can even 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 OS X apps that can perform that duty. (Photos 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 Image Capture.

Operating Your Scanner

Preview can also operate a scanner, auto-straighten ...