Preview is one of the Mac's most underrated apps. At first, you'll likely only encounter Preview when you try to open images or PDFs, but there's much more to the app than just opening files. I began exploring Preview's advanced features a decade ago, and I've found it's one of the best free PDF editors for the Mac. And, if you have an iPhone or iPad, you get many of the same benefits with Preview's mobile version. If you'd like to make the most of Preview, here are 10 hacks you should know.
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Change this setting to use Preview's hidden PDF dark mode
Credit: Pranay ParabMost of us save images to our Macs before opening them using Preview. However, you can bypass this step by opening images directly from your clipboard. This way, you can copy an image from any app, including browsers or messaging apps, and have Preview open it for editing instantly. Copy any image to your Mac's clipboard, open Preview, and press Command + N to open the image for editing. Alternatively, you can open Preview and select File > New from Clipboard.
Use this hidden Preview setting to remove image backgrounds
There are two other ways to use this feature in Preview. You can either click Tools > Remove Background from the menu bar, or select Remove Background in the app's toolbar, which has a camera icon with diagonal lines within the borders. (This was a recent discovery for me, as I didn't know what this icon did until I accidentally left the cursor on the button and read the tooltip.)
Preview also makes it easy to copy text from images and PDFs. While most PDF documents make it easy to select text, I've come across quite a few where each page is a scanned image, which prevents you from selecting text. In these situations, Preview can help you extract text from images easily. To use this feature, open an image, screenshot, or PDF in Preview, move the cursor over the text, and double-click or drag the cursor over the text to select it. Feel free to copy and paste it as you like. This feature works in Preview for iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
Use this setting to turn your iPhone into a dedicated document scanner
Credit: Pranay ParabImport from iPhone > Scan Documents. As long as your iPhone and Mac are signed in to the same iCloud account, this should open the Camera app on the iPhone, automatically set to scan documents. Point the camera at a page, and your iPhone will automatically identify borders and scan the page. It's set to keep scanning until you press the checkmark button in the top-right corner. Once you're done, the document is automatically imported into Preview for Mac, where you can edit the scan before saving it. The same scanning mode is available in Preview for iPhone and iPad. Open the app and tap Scan Documents to get started.
This can be a great way to learn more about how your photo was shot. (There really is a lot of data here.) But I also recommend reviewing this data before sharing the image with others, or on the internet. If you find too many personal, sensitive, or identifying data points within, take steps to remove the EXIF data before sending the image out into the wild. Before sending a photo on Mac, right-click it in Finder, choose Quick Actions > Convert Image, then uncheck Preserve Metadata.
Combine multiple PDF pages into one document with Preview
In Preview for iPhone and iPad, open a PDF, and swipe right from the left edge of the screen to show page thumbnails in a pane. Tap the three dots on any page, and select Insert from File to combine pages from another PDF. In the same menu, tap Delete Page to remove a page from the PDF file.
Edit a PDF's permissions to password-protect your documents
Preview for Mac is also a good tool to add or remove passwords from your PDFs. To add a password to your PDF, open a document in Preview, and select File > Export. Click Permissions, and you'll be able to add a password to open the document, and even an owner password for the file, which lets you stop people from editing, printing, or copying text from your PDFs without the password. To remove a password from a PDF file, open it in Preview on your Mac, and go to File > Enter Password. Once you enter the owner password in the right pane, select Edit, which will let you edit the permissions for the document. You can use this settings pane to remove all passwords from the file, and save it to your computer.
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