I'm always so pleased when I find a way round some exasperating computer problem that I thought I'd share my moments of triumph ...

Thursday 28 July 2011

Preview - two ways to format annotations

a) The "normal" way, using the Tools menu bar at the bottom. You get this menu bar when you select (at the top) Tools > Annotate (any option)













b) The obscure way with more options, using the Tools inspector under Tools in the top menu















Does all this seem complicated? I never said it was simple! That's why I had my moment of triumph ...

Tuesday 26 July 2011

Mac - Preview annotations options

Do you drive a Mac? If so you probably find Preview extremely useful. Here's how to do some extra smart things.

More options for the appearance of annotations - text, oval, rectangle, line:
  • Click Tools > Annotate > Add text
  • In the menu at the bottom of the screen, click on the little Text square
  • Click and drag on the screen and type the text.
  • Next, here is the magic bit, with the text box selected, go to Tools > Show inspector (or cmd-i)
  • At the top of the Inspector box, click the pencil icon top right
  • The pull-down list next to Text style then offers various options - Outline, Bordered, Speech bubble, Thought bubble
  • You can adjust the line thickness, line colour and fill colour if you select one of these.
You get similar choices if you click Show inspector for other annotation choices such as Rectangle or Oval, and indeed Line - at last, how to get rid of the arrows.