I can also recommend Skim (free and open source) for macOS for some additional functionality [1].
I need to uninstall it but I keep forgetting. This is a good remembrance
- Paste images that were copied to the clipboard. Just open Preview and press CMD-N
- Split, re-arrange and merge PDF documents. Just drag pages into the sidebar
- Sign documents. Click the annotation button in the menu bar, sign either on touchpad, ipad or hold an ink signature on paper into the webcam.
- OCR (new with macOS ventura). Just click/drag/double-click on text in images.
What more did I forget?
This is helpful if you want to extend an image horizontally or vertically (or both).
You could also increase the dimensions of the original image, but it would “zoom in”, which I don’t want.
Not sure I explained it well…
This one is new to me. TIL. Thanks!
And if you need more editing features than Preview.app (which is already very powerful), PDF Expert [1] is my go-to on the App Store.
For some reason I've never bothered to figure out, I do sometimes have to copy a PDF before it'll let me re-arrange or copy/cut individual pages out of it. But not always. I assume it's because of some kind of flag on downloaded files in macOS, but IDK.
Preview does the trick just fine.
CMND+R = rotate right
CMND+L = rotate left
https://web.archive.org/web/20070109004135/http://www.cups.o...
I’m 80% at requiring it for anyone at the company that doesn’t need full acrobat to create PDFs. And even then I’m close to pushing the version of FoxIt that does that.
These are so much better than Acrobat. Might not do everything you can imagine but they are excellent and a very good default.
Apple has been quietly using the same screenshot functionality since the 90s, and has continually iterated over improvements on Preview since the early 2000s.
I find the macos shortcuts to be poorly chosen and un-discoverable, but they've stuck with it, so finding how to take a screenshot is extremely easy.
Microsoft:
Microsoft is on their third major revamp of screenshots. There are six(!) different ways to invoke a screenshot on Window 11 - printscrn key, Win+Shift+S, snip and sketch, snipping tool, game bar, pressing the volume up+power buttons on supported devices (but not all). Microsoft's official website suggests third party tools in their app store as well. Each way offers different options (such as whole screen, individual app, cropping, etc). Some options quietly redirect you to other options, while still offering the previous option in contextual menus. Options will vary in where they place the image as well - filesystem, clipboard, or directly into a window for you to chose.
Microsoft uses their browser as a featureless PDF reader. Other Preview.app functionality can be found within a combination of paint.exe and the new Windows Photos app - each with a completely different UI paradigm. They do not have an OCR solution - or if they do, I haven't found it.
My understanding is that Windows 12 is a direct attempt to resolve a lot of these issues, and that Windows 11 has been deemed "transitional", but it's still extremely exhausting. I personally still prefer Windows over macOS (for a lot of reasons unrelated to Windows' incredibly boneheaded rough edges); but, please, Microsoft, what the fuck are you doing!?
I think there's also the implication of 'pro', as if the rest of HN are not software professionals. I'd suggest GP to revise the structure of their comment in order to not offend the entire forum.
And then adobe takes advantage of that fact (Their product is second to none), and rail their customers by making their products expensive AF.
TLDR: Adobe products are AMAZING. Their pricing structure and marketing techniques and straight up disrespect to their customers is absolute garbage.
It galls me to think they want $500 for me to buy Pro again when I don't need or want any of the new features. I just want the existing functionality I paid for to continue working.
Do any of the alternatives have similar fine control of compression options that Acrobat Pro exposes? I'd switch in a heartbeat.
I've used it to great success for down-/resizing/-sampling all kind of PDFs which sometimes are basically full pictures on each page.
Create own filter, add "picture compression", mode "JPEG", move the slider just a little right from the middle...
Start ColorSync app, open PDF, select filter from lower left, click "Apply" and then either "Save" or "Save as..."
You could always rotate the view, that's not changed.
Good old days.
btw PDF started as Project Camelot at Adobe in ~1990, as a way to capture the results of executing a PostScript program [1]. I'm curious if there is still that kind of foundational innovation happening at Adobe, and if not, why it died?
[1] https://blog.adobe.com/en/2018/06/14/evolution-digital-docum...
No way San Jose!
What Adobe is doing, however, is to add icons and menu entries for editing functionality that will never work in Reader, advertising the features of their PDF editing software. That's, basically, yet another extremely intrusive advertising strategy that's annoying as hell and that I guess we are bound to see even more of it in the future.
The recent news about Adobe removing Pantone colors from existing projects is even more egregious:
https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/1/23434305/adobe-pantone-su...
I don't use it enough to need a subscription.
The editor is entirely free to use and works locally (nothing gets sent to my server: neither the document you load nor the data you fill in [2])
- Adobe Reader desktop app (free and lets you rotate PDF pages)
- Adobe Pro desktop app (full PDF editing and requires subscription)
- Adobe PDF online (requires a free account and lets you rotate PDF pages: https://www.adobe.com/acrobat/online.html)
You can still rotate PDF pages using the Reader desktop app. However, as other posters have recommended, there are many alternative PDF apps. Avoid Adobe if you can.
There is an online version that requires signing in, but no purchase.
https://adobe.com/acrobat/online/rotate-pdf.html
There are some other tools there as well.
Disclosure: Adobe employee, not in Document Cloud.
One of the paid feature that I really like is fluid PDF on mobile screen. Most PDF is not very readable on mobile screen, it needs pan and zoom. The fluid feature make the layout become more HTML-like and fluid, and adapt to mobile screen size. That is a feature to monetize. not rotating pages!
This is not new.
Same old, same old.
