New Mac, and Preview doesn't work as well as it used to.
August 31, 2023 6:17 AM Subscribe
I got a new Mac and Preview doesn't work as well- it's harder to crop, paste, annotate, and save quickly-edited images and screengrabs. Can I fix it?
There are four annoying things about the version I have now:
- Copy-pasting: My work involves a lot of "comparing good and bad versions of things to people so they can fix them". To do this, I usually open a reference image, copy-paste on a bunch of things from other reference images, and then copy-paste some blocks of a plain colour to hide the mess and make it look tidy. Then I use annotations to draw or write on the composite image, to quickly draw attention to the comparisons. I love doing this in Old Preview and REALLY do not want to use another kind of software to do this - speed is important.
- Cropping: The new Preview doesn't crop as easily - it opens two different ways. Sometimes it gives me the classic cross-hair-cursor that you click and drag to make a cut box (good), but sometimes it gives me white corners that you have to click and pull in (not as good).
- Annotation: Sometimes I can draw on the image or adjust it easily, and sometimes it's like those buttons aren't there.
- Saving All The Damn Time: And most annoyingly, Preview now won't let me close the images without asking tediously if I want to save them. Sometimes I have 20 images open at once, so it's super slow and annoying.
I used to have an older Mac laptop running Sierra for a zillion years (like until a few months ago!), now I'm on Monterrey 12.2.1.
How do I make Preview work the way it used to?
Thanks!
There are four annoying things about the version I have now:
- Copy-pasting: My work involves a lot of "comparing good and bad versions of things to people so they can fix them". To do this, I usually open a reference image, copy-paste on a bunch of things from other reference images, and then copy-paste some blocks of a plain colour to hide the mess and make it look tidy. Then I use annotations to draw or write on the composite image, to quickly draw attention to the comparisons. I love doing this in Old Preview and REALLY do not want to use another kind of software to do this - speed is important.
- Cropping: The new Preview doesn't crop as easily - it opens two different ways. Sometimes it gives me the classic cross-hair-cursor that you click and drag to make a cut box (good), but sometimes it gives me white corners that you have to click and pull in (not as good).
- Annotation: Sometimes I can draw on the image or adjust it easily, and sometimes it's like those buttons aren't there.
- Saving All The Damn Time: And most annoyingly, Preview now won't let me close the images without asking tediously if I want to save them. Sometimes I have 20 images open at once, so it's super slow and annoying.
I used to have an older Mac laptop running Sierra for a zillion years (like until a few months ago!), now I'm on Monterrey 12.2.1.
How do I make Preview work the way it used to?
Thanks!
The "white corner" cropping tool is in Quick Look, not Preview, yeah.
Can you upgrade to the newer Ventura version of macOS? Monterey is from 2021 (and you are 14 updates behind just in Monterey alone) and I don't see problems with Preview in Ventura like you're mentioning.
posted by bcwinters at 6:40 AM on August 31, 2023
Can you upgrade to the newer Ventura version of macOS? Monterey is from 2021 (and you are 14 updates behind just in Monterey alone) and I don't see problems with Preview in Ventura like you're mentioning.
posted by bcwinters at 6:40 AM on August 31, 2023
Technically, I guess Mark Up is not specific to Quick Look - you can get to it from several applications.
posted by zamboni at 7:03 AM on August 31, 2023
posted by zamboni at 7:03 AM on August 31, 2023
This is a sideways answer, so apologies for that, but you might want to check out Freeform (which should be included with your Mac) as an alternative.
posted by adamrice at 9:15 AM on August 31, 2023
posted by adamrice at 9:15 AM on August 31, 2023
It might help to diagnose this if you told us what version of Preview your new Mac is running. Click on "Preview" in the top menu bar, then "About Preview" in the drop down. I believe the newest one would say Version 11.0 (1044.2). And if you still have your old Mac, check that version also.
posted by beagle at 10:57 AM on August 31, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by beagle at 10:57 AM on August 31, 2023 [3 favorites]
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posted by zamboni at 6:34 AM on August 31, 2023