Josh Centers

Adam Engst

Discover Preview’s hidden features for editing images and manipulating PDFs! Version 1.2, updated May 22, 2020 Apple bundles the Preview app with every Mac, but few people realize what it’s capable of. The Mac experts behind TidBITS, Adam Engst and Josh Centers, have plumbed Preview’s depths to create a cheerful, colorful book that explains dozens of techniques for importing, viewing, editing, and converting images in Preview. The book also puts you in control of reading, annotating, manipulating, and encrypting PDFs. Updated to cover Catalina! Packed with real-world examples and tips, the book teaches you how to bring files into Preview from a camera, iOS device, or scanner (or just from the Finder). Once you discover Preview’s surprisingly capable collection of image-editing tools, you’ll soon be editing imported photos by tweaking the exposure, color saturation, sharpness, and more. You can even mark up your images with circles, arrows, and text, plus numerous other shapes. In the second part of the book, Adam and Josh focus on PDFs in Preview, describing how to configure Preview to make reading PDFs as fluid as possible. Since so many paper forms now come in PDF, the book shows you how to fill out PDF-based forms, complete with quick insertion of your digital signature. Those who read digital textbooks or who collaborate on documents will learn to annotate PDFs with highlights, notes, and bookmarks. You’ll even learn how to create PDFs from a scanner, the clipboard, and the Print dialog. Finally, Adam and Josh cover the two types of passwords you can use to protect your PDFs, explaining what each is good for. Preview is a veritable Swiss Army Knife. Don’t miss out on the many ways it can make your life easier, including these capabilities: • Import photos from your iPhone or iPad. • Scan paper-based documents and images. • Add a scanned page to an existing PDF. • Take a screenshot that includes the pointer. • Open hundreds of images in a single window. • Trash unwanted images with a keystroke. • Duplicate, rename, and move images without leaving Preview. • Play a manually arranged slideshow of images or PDF pages. • Create a PDF-based image catalog. • Resize and change the resolution of images. • Crop out undesirable content. • Mark up screenshots with shapes and text labels. • Magnify a portion of an image with a loupe. • Add text captions and speech bubbles to photos. • Tweak the white point and black point in photos. • Make photos sepia or black-and-white. • Edit a photo while comparing it to its original version. • Export to any one of 20 formats, including HEIC (introduced in Mojave). • Put thumbnails, table of contents, notes, or bookmarks in your sidebar. • View search results by rank or page order. • Copy text and images from a PDF. • Highlight text just like you would in a college textbook. • Add notes to highlighted text and as freestanding objects. • Review notes in the sidebar or Annotations inspector. • Create bookmarks to pages you want to revisit quickly. • Annotate a PDF with customizable shapes and arrows. • Fill in PDF forms, whether or not they’re interactive. • Create and insert a digital version of your signature into PDF forms. • Add, remove, and rearrange pages in a PDF. • Rotate PDF pages that were scanned at the wrong orientation. • Encrypt PDFs so they can’t be opened, edited, printed, or copied from.

Take Control of Preview

Unlock the potential of Apple’s Notes app! Version 1.5, updated September 20, 2021 Apple’s Notes has come a long way since it was first introduced with the iPhone as a simple note-taking app, but many users are still unaware of its expanded capabilities. Now available on Macs, on iOS/iPadOS devices, and on the web at iCloud.com, Notes has become a surprisingly powerful tool for writing, sketching, organizing, and sharing information of all kinds. In Take Control of Notes, TidBITS Managing Editor Josh Centers provides a quick but thorough guide to this deceptively simple app, showing you how to master its many tools—and avoid or work around its limitations. Among many other things, you'll learn how to: • Choose where to stores notes (iCloud, IMAP, or a device) and whether or how they sync • Import notes from other apps and services • Apply and modify character-level and paragraph-level formatting in a note • Make lists (including checklists and lists with multiple levels of indentation) • Work with tables in notes • Encrypt notes with a password • Add photos, videos, audio, maps, and other content to your notes • Scan printed documents into Notes and save them as PDF attachments • Draw and sketch using your finger or an Apple Pencil • Share notes with other users, and add @-mentions • Use the Quick Note feature in macOS and iPadOS to start a note from anywhere • Organize your notes into folders, tag notes, and search their contents

Take Control of Notes

Learn how to make the most of Apple’s mobile operating systems! Updated 6/25/2020 Whether you use an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, you'll find lots to explore in <i>Take Control of iOS 13 and iPadOS 13</i> by TidBITS Managing Editor Josh Centers. Learn about what's new in iOS 13 and iPadOS 13—and how to customize them to fit your needs. The latest annual update to iOS features the usual selection of new features, improved user interface, and security enhancements. It also marks the split of Apple's mobile operating system into iOS (for iPhone and iPod touch) and iPadOS (for iPad only). This is more than just a name change; with iPadOS 13, the iPad gets huge improvements that bring it much closer to the computing power and flexibility we expect from conventional computers. TidBITS Managing Editor Josh Centers is back to guide you through all the major capabilities of both operating systems in this new book. Take Control of iOS 13 and iPadOS 13 goes far beyond the new features, providing anextensive guide to getting the most out of iOS 13 and iPadOS 13. Among other things, you'll learn how to: • New! Discover all the major changes in iOS and iPadOS • New! Use activity views (which replace Share sheets and are for more than just sharing) • New! Enable Dark Mode on your mobile device • Updated! Use the new Find My app • New! Make the most of improved text editing tools • Updated! Use Siri and Shortcuts to do even more than before, thanks to significantly expanded capabilities • New! Use accessibility improvements, including voice control and mouse support • Updated! Discover the new (and existing) capabilities of Apple's upgraded apps—including Files, Mail, Maps, Messages, Notes, and Reminders • Updated! Use Screen Time to make better choices about when and how you use your device • New! Work with the updated iPad Home screen, Dock, and onscreen keyboard • New! Learn about the new iPad multitasking capabilities, including more ways to split the screen, use multiple windows, and drag & drop between apps • New! Browse the web with ease using the desktop-class Safari for iPadOS • New! Use the significantly updated Camera and Photos apps to take photos and videos, apply camera effects, and organize your media • Make sense of the Lock screen, Home screen, and Control Center—and customize them to meet your needs • Search with Spotlight • Switch between apps and use Handoff to transfer your work • Navigate the App Store • Understand the ins and outs of Family Sharing • Manage your data—both locally on your device and in the cloud • Make calls and use FaceTime and Voicemail • Organize your Wallet and use Apple Pay • Protect your privacy • Improve your battery life • …and much more! Anyone with a compatible iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch will benefit from Josh's in-depth explanations.

Josh Centers

About

Books

Join the club