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'Preview'

P

Peter Franks

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jun 9, 2011
2,118
125
Hi people, curious about this, In the dock, you have 'Preview', but click on it and nothing happens, I get that when you open a pic it uses preview to show the pics, but why is something in the dock that doesn't open, When checking 'help' it says... To learn more about Preview, open Preview.... I can't open Preview. I've had this for 3 weeks now and can't open it from the dock shortcut.

Also.... when I am looking at an album of pics, the old Windows progs let you scroll through them. When pics open on here, there is no arrow to go to next shot, you have to keep going back to the list and clicking each link to view them one at a time?
 
Peter Franks said:
Hi people, curious about this, In the dock, you have 'Preview', but click on it and nothing happens, I get that when you open a pic it uses preview to show the pics, but why is something in the dock that doesn't open, When checking 'help' it says... To learn more about Preview, open Preview.... I can't open Preview. I've had this for 3 weeks now and can't open it from the dock shortcut.
Click to expand...

Look to the top right hand side of the screen, it will say Finder (or whatever application you are currently in) If you click on the Preview icon in the dock Preview open, but it is effectively previewing nothing. It's basically there to open PDF's.

Peter Franks said:
Also.... when I am looking at an album of pics, the old Windows progs let you scroll through them. When pics open on here, there is no arrow to go to next shot, you have to keep going back to the list and clicking each link to view them one at a time?
Click to expand...

Preview is not really meant to be used that way. To view photo's iPhoto would work much better.
 
But if you click on a PDF or a pic etc it will just open, and probably in 'preview', but why is there an icon for Preview in the dock, if you click on it and it doesn't open, why would you need to open it, I don't get it. You need a pic to click on or pdf etc? Or I'm really missing something here?

Am I? :eek:
 
Its just like in Windows, when you open Microsoft Word from the icon it just opens a blank page. WHen you click preview in the dock, you're opening a blank page. As preview is just a reader it has nothing to display as default, so it doesnt open any new windows on the screen - just opens the application.

Maybe you want to open Preview to change settings etc. Then you jsut need to go to your dock or shortcut rather than going and finding a document to open to get Preview open. Or what if other applications need to launch Preview, like Safari when you find a PDF online. An application like this always needs to be launchable in a default state, wouldn't be very practical to just have it open when you need a certain type of file to open.

Of course, you can always take it out of the dock by simply dragging the icon off of the dock and letting go.

Thanks
Zip
 
Good point, but like you say, even Word opens blank doc, this does nothing so to the uninitiated. (ME) you wouldn't haven't a clue, because you'd open the document, pic, pdf or whatever and don't have to open the Preview icon. So basically your saying even if you want to change the settings for it, It will only put it in the 'file/edit bar' at the top to alter settings for the programme, nothing opens below, that was my confusion.
 
Also.... when I am looking at an album of pics, the old Windows progs let you scroll through them. When pics open on here, there is no arrow to go to next shot, you have to keep going back to the list and clicking each link to view them one at a time?
Click to expand...
Two ways of doing this. Select your first picture and then tap the spacebar to open it in Quicklook. You can then go to the next, and so on.

Select all the pictures that you want to view, right/ctrl click and there should be a slideshow option shown.
 
Peter Franks said:
Also.... when I am looking at an album of pics, the old Windows progs let you scroll through them. When pics open on here, there is no arrow to go to next shot, you have to keep going back to the list and clicking each link to view them one at a time?
Click to expand...
You can easily do that with Preview. Just select the pics you want, then right-click and select Open With > Preview.app

You can now scroll through the pics, make batch modifications, etc.
 
GGJstudios said:
You can easily do that with Preview. Just select the pics you want, then right-click and select Open With > Preview.app

You can now scroll through the pics, make batch modifications, etc.
Click to expand...

If the entire folder is just pictures you should be able to hit Command + a, it will select all files in the folder. You can then hit the space bar to open them with Preview. To preview in full screen hit Option + Space.
Preview is a great program, here is the apple support page.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2506
 
Jagardn said:
You can then hit the space bar to open them with Preview.
Click to expand...
Using the space bar to preview files is not the same as using the Preview app. Using the space bar preview, you can't modify any pics. Using the Preview app, you can.
 
GGJstudios said:
Using the space bar to preview files is not the same as using the Preview app. Using the space bar preview, you can't modify any pics. Using the Preview app, you can.
Click to expand...

Agreed. This is one of my favorite OS X features: Quick View. In 1/10 second, I can see the contents of most common files without launching an application. Launching preview brings the ability to do some basic edititing of some files such as pdf and some image files.

When I first switched to Mac, I used gimp to open images. Now I find I can do most of what I need in Preview and there are other freeware image apps such as Seashore when I want to "go a little further".
 
GGJstudios said:
Using the space bar to preview files is not the same as using the Preview app. Using the space bar preview, you can't modify any pics. Using the Preview app, you can.
Click to expand...

You are correct Sir! It is actually Quicklook for the spacebar. But the OP said nothing about editing pictures, so that was the route I took. :D
 
Thanks for all your answers guys, you are all lifesavers for us 15 year plus Windows users who feel like they're learning Taiwanese when they get behind a Mac and are basically terrified they'll never be able to use as proficiently as we did the virus riddled XP OS.

I was actually viewing the pics from a USB stick rather than them being on the Mac but I'm guessing that wouldn't matter
 
Peter Franks said:
Thanks for all your answers guys, you are all lifesavers for us 15 year plus Windows users who feel like they're learning Taiwanese when they get behind a Mac and are basically terrified they'll never be able to use as proficiently as we did the virus riddled XP OS.

I was actually viewing the pics from a USB stick rather than them being on the Mac but I'm guessing that wouldn't matter
Click to expand...
No, it doesn't matter where the pics are located, as you can view them from any drive (attached or networked) with Quick Look (via the space bar) or Preview.app.

Don't worry about the transition. You'll ramp up quickly and find the Mac quite easy to use. Just give yourself time to learn and get used to a few differences.

Helpful Information for Any Mac User
 
Thanks a lot for that!

I had to use a Win machine when I was out today, and I'd already forgotten the '@' is in a totally different place and was trying to close windows from the left hand top corner instead of the right..
 
Sorry to go over old ground guys, but someone sent me a CD of pics that I put in, and they opened in Preview, When I touch the space bar nothing happens, and there was no option to scroll through, just open and closing each one. Is it because they're on a CD or am I just getting stupider?
 
Peter Franks said:
Sorry to go over old ground guys, but someone sent me a CD of pics that I put in, and they opened in Preview, When I touch the space bar nothing happens, and there was no option to scroll through, just open and closing each one. Is it because they're on a CD or am I just getting stupider?
Click to expand...
Remember, the space bar is Quick Look, not Preview. If they open in Preview, use the up and down arrows to scroll through them. Or turn on the Preview sidebar to click on ones you want to view. If they're opened by the space bar in Quick Look, use the left and right arrow keys to scroll through them.
 
Ah, OK, I'll give that a go. When I put up the Preview side bar last night, it just showed me the 'one' shot in it. Thanks guys
 
Peter Franks said:
Ah, OK, I'll give that a go. When I put up the Preview side bar last night, it just showed me the 'one' shot in it. Thanks guys
Click to expand...
To get several pics open in Preview, highlight the pics in Finder, then right-click and select Open With > Preview.
 
Thanks, that's what I'd not done, opened in Finder, I just clicked on them from what opened when I clicked on the Disc
 
Peter Franks said:
Hi people, curious about this, In the dock, you have 'Preview', but click on it and nothing happens, I get that when you open a pic it uses preview to show the pics, but why is something in the dock that doesn't open, When checking 'help' it says... To learn more about Preview, open Preview.... I can't open Preview. I've had this for 3 weeks now and can't open it from the dock shortcut.

Also.... when I am looking at an album of pics, the old Windows progs let you scroll through them. When pics open on here, there is no arrow to go to next shot, you have to keep going back to the list and clicking each link to view them one at a time?
Click to expand...

Peter,

If you open preview, the program is running but has no windows open because you're not doing anything with it. May I ask (and I don't mean this to be snarky, I'm asking genuinely) what you would expect it to do when you clicked on it?

I can say this with a little empathy because I've only made the switch to the Mac less than two years ago.

Preview is open, and ready. Its menu is accessible... so I find myself (since you asked for examples) opening preview and quickly hitting File > Open Recent > (...) and grabbing a recently-opened document. Since Preview's primary purpose is not document creation, the de facto default state is to be ready to view (preview...?) a file.
 
Preview is one of those applications that originally I was a little underwhelmed by when I first moved over to the dark side (as my PC friends like to call it!). As I have used it more, the more I have become impressed. I use preview for the following:-
  • My scanner software does not work under Snow Leopard so I use File - Import from Scanner - then my Canon MP272. That brings up a scanning overview and then I adjust what I what I want to scan and then scan.
  • I also use it to add pages of PDFs to another PDF by dragging and dropping pages onto or into the PDF. I then save the amended PDF. It will only do this for non-passworded PDFs but I find it useful for amalgamating scans I have done.
Hope that is helpful.:D
 
JackHobbs said:
Preview is one of those applications that originally I was a little underwhelmed by when I first moved over to the dark side (as my PC friends like to call it!). As I have used it more, the more I have become impressed. I use preview for the following:-
  • My scanner software does not work under Snow Leopard so I use File - Import from Scanner - then my Canon MP272. That brings up a scanning overview and then I adjust what I what I want to scan and then scan.
  • I also use it to add pages of PDFs to another PDF by dragging and dropping pages onto or into the PDF. I then save the amended PDF. It will only do this for non-passworded PDFs but I find it useful for amalgamating scans I have done.
Hope that is helpful.:D
Click to expand...

People often whine about having to buy software on OS X but Preview is a clear example of getting something free with the OS that Windows users must pay to get (Adobe Acrobat, various shareware PDF creators, etc, etc).
 
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