Excellent Mac Tips for Teachers on How to Annotate and Edit PDF and Images

April 17, 2016
If you have a Mac or iMac and you are not using the Preview app then you definitely are missing out on a lot things. Preview app combines the functionalities of two applications into a single editor: it allows you to view and edit both photos and PDFs. As a teacher, you can use this app to prepare your visuals and annotate PDFs to include in your instruction. Preview app offers you a bunch of powerful editing features all for free. In today’s post, we are going to show you some the things you can do with this app:

I- For images, Preview app allows you to:

Open and view a variety of image types including: TIFF, PNG, JEPG, GIF, BMP, and PDF.
Select any area in the image and cut or copy it to clipboard
Select and remove backgrounds or other objects from photos (this daily works with PNG)
Add different shapes to your images(e.g rectangle. ellipse, or line tools)
Add text to your images
Adjust the colour and size of your images

To open an image using Preview, double click on it or drag and drop it into Preview icon in Finder or Dock. Once opened, you can use the tools in the toolbar to edit your images. Here is some of what you can do with these tools:
A- Change the magnification of your image using the scale up Scale up (+) button

and scale down Scale up (-) button

buttons
B- Click on ‘Show Markup Toolbar’ to open the editing toolbar then choose from the tools below:

C- Use this tool selection tool icon

to crop your image or copy/ cut a portion of your image into your clipboard. It offers different selection formats:

D- Use Instant Alpha tool instant alpha tool icon

to remove a background or other objects from your image
E- Use the Rectangle

, Ellipse

or Line tools to add shapes to your image.
F- Use the Text tool add text tool showing text within a box

to add a text to your image. ‘Click and hold the Text tool button to see additional options such as speech bubbles and thought bubbles.’
G- Use this tool adjust color icon that looks like a prism

adjust color icon that looks like a prism

to adjust the colour of your image.

II- For PDFs, Preview app allows you to:

Open and view PDF files
Highlight selected areas in a PDF
Add a text box and type in your text in a PDF
Add shapes to a PDF
Add notes and comments
Fill in form blanks in a PDF
Insert your a digital image of your signature into a PDF

Here is how to annotate your PDF documents using Preview. Once you open your PDF in Preview, click on ‘Show Markup Toolbar’ to open the editing toolbar then choose from the tools below:

A-

Use this tool to select text in your PDF which you can then copy and paste into any text editor of your choice.
B- add text tool showing text within a box

: Use this tool to add a text box anywhere in your PDF
C-

: Use this tool to add a variety of shapes to your PDF
D- the annotations icon looks like a notepad