Preview Pdf Reader Audio For Mac
If you flip back through your course notes, you’ll see that last week we explored using Preview to edit and annotate images. But as I explained in that lesson, Preview has powers beyond images. It’s also Apple’s default PDF reader. And while it’s no substitute for Adobe Acrobat Pro as a PDF document creator and editor, it has some useful talents of its own. We’ll explore those talents now.
Note: Throughout this discussion we’ll be talking about unencrypted PDF files. When dealing with encrypted PDFs, you may not be able to perform some of these tasks.
For Mac users, there are flexible choice for PDF reader, including Adobe Reader for Mac and Preview. But if you want a better PDF reading experience, you need to get help from a powerful PDF program. For this reason, here we help you to pick up top 12 free PDF reader for Mac (macOS Mojave, High Sierra, Sierra and El Capitan) that offer more. Change the Default PDF Viewer in Mac OS X. This works the same to set Preview as the default pdf viewer in all versions of Mac OS: From the Mac OS X desktop or Finder, find a PDF file and hit Command+i to “Get Info” on the file.
Navigating and viewing PDFs
When you double-click a PDF file, it opens, by default, in Preview. The first time you launch it, you’ll see the first page of the file (if it has multiple pages). You can navigate through the document by scrolling down or by dragging the document’s scrollbar, but there’s an easier way to make your way through it.
In the window’s upper-left corner is the View menu. Click it and you’ll see several options: Content Only, Thumbnails, Table of Contents, Highlights and Notes, and Contact Sheet. You’ll also see options for Continuous Scroll, Single Page, and Two Pages. Here’s how they work.
Content Only is a sidebar-less window that displays the contents of your document. Click Thumbnails to expose Preview’s sidebar, where each page of the document is represented by a small page image. You can quickly move to a different page by clicking its thumbnail. Table of Contents is useful if the document has such a thing—a page (or pages) with embedded links that, when clicked, take you to related pages. If the document lacks a Table of Contents, you’ll see only the title of the document.
If you’ve highlighted text within the document or added text notes (both of which we’ll cover later), those alterations will appear as short text snippets within the sidebar. Click a snippet to jump to a page where the related highlight or note appears. This is a very handy way to get through a long PDF file that you’ve annotated. The Contact Sheet view places thumbnails of the document’s pages in the main window, and you can zoom in on the thumbnails to get a better idea of what they contain. You can’t zoom in on the pages in Thumbnails view.
The last three options—Continuous Scroll, Single Page, and Two Pages—govern how Preview displays pages in the main window. Choose Continuous Scroll to scroll smoothly between pages. A page break will appear between each one. When you use a scrolling control in Single Page view, you’ll jump from one page to the next; you won’t see the text from a preceding or succeeding page as you scroll up or down. For its part, Two Pages shows you two pages side by side. If your document has an odd number of pages, the first page will appear by itself. You’ll see the two-page layout only when you select the second and subsequent pages.
These visual controls are useful for short documents. But when you’re working with a PDF that contains hundreds of pages and you know approximately which page you wish to navigate to, turn to the Go to Page command found in Preview’s Go menu. Just enter a page number in the appropriate field and click OK.
Speaking of long PDF files, Preview wouldn’t be much of a PDF tool if it didn’t allow you to mark your place in long documents. Fortunately, it does. When you find a place that you’d like to mark, choose Bookmarks > Add Bookmark (Command-D). Then enter a name for your bookmark and click Add. To return to this bookmark, click it in Preview’s Bookmarks menu.
Adding and rearranging pages
One PDF problem that people often encounter involves having multiple PDFs that they’d like to combine into a single file. This is easy to do in Preview.
To combine PDF files, open one of the files, click the View menu, choose Thumbnails, and drag the other PDF file from the Finder into the Thumbnail pane where you’d like that dragged document to appear. Drag it above the first thumbnail if you’d like the dragged pages to appear first; drag it below the other thumbnails to append it to the end; or drag it somewhere in the middle to insert the pages at an in-between location.
You don’t have to combine entire documents. If you want to copy just a page or two from one PDF to another, just open each document in Preview, expose the Thumbnail views in the View menu in each window, select the pages you want to copy from one document to the other, and drag them into that other document’s Thumbnail pane.
Finally, to rearrange the order of pages, expose the Thumbnail pane again and drag pages to wherever you’d like them to appear.
Aug 28,2019 • Filed to: Mac Tutorials
'Is there a reliable PDF reader for Mac?'
Mac users have a number of PDF reader programs to choose from, including Adobe Reader for Mac and Preview. But if you want a better PDF reading experience, you might want to use a more robust and powerful PDF program. In this article, we’ve compiled the top 12 free PDF reader for Mac tools including PDFelement Pro, which offers more features than a simple PDF reader.
Part 1: Top 12 Best PDF Reader Tools for Mac
1. PDFelement Pro - The Best Alternative PDF Reader to Adobe Acrobat for Mac
As high-quality as Adobe Reader is due to its constant updates and improvements, you can also look into alternative programs that can perform many of the same tasks. PDFelement Pro for Mac, as the best alternative PDF Reader to Adobe Acrobat for Mac, acts as both a PDF editor and reader that provides you full functions for PDF editing and a better experience reading PDF on Mac. This tool lets you add text, images, bookmarks, and more to your PDF. In addition, a user can also highlight text, underline, use strike-through features on the text and crop PDF pages on Mac. Watermarks can also be used to protect your PDF files on Mac. You can even edit and convert scanned PDF files with PDFelement Pro.
Key Features of this PDF Reader:
- Add, delete or edit text, images, graphics, links, watermarks, and more.
- Convert PDF to Word and other formats, or create PDFs from Webpages, images, and text files.
- Quickly mark up and annotate PDFs with various annotation tools.
- Combine or split PDFs, organize pages, and easily fill out PDF forms.
- Edit and convert scanned or image-based PDFs using the OCR feature.
- Easily add watermarks, passwords, and signature to PDF documents.
2. Skim - A Popular and Well-developed PDF Reader for Mac
Skim is a popular PDF Reader on Mac that is tailored towards scientific purposes, although it can also be used to view other types of documents as well. This free PDF reader software is designed to be customizable for individual use, and is handy for notes and previews. The reason why Skim is one of the most popular options is because it includes easy-to-use and visually impressive reading modes.
Key Features:
- Single swipe highlight mode for easy use
- AppleScript support
- Ability to preview internal links
3. Adobe Reader for Mac - A Widely Used Free PDF Reader
You can download Adobe Reader on Mac for free and set it as your default PDF reader. Adobe Reader for Mac is considered the industry standard. Adobe is still a very well respected product on the market, as they are constantly making improvements and upgrades to the program, but there are other options that offer many of the same features at a lower price and without without complicated licensing agreements.
Key Features:
- Fast and easy to use
- Established platform worldwide
- Considered industry standard
- Well developed and supported
4. Free PDF Reader - A Simple to Use Mac PDF Rreader
This is another very popular Free PDF Reader for Mac. It includes many excellent features, and is designed to be easy to navigate and simple to use. The software claims to have 150million users, which indicates a tried and tested package, and offers some impressive features including:
Key Features:
- Multi document viewing feature
- Rotate and Zoom facility
- Exporting and conversion capabilities
- Advanced printing options
5. Haihaisoft Reader for Mac - A Small Size Free PDF Reader for Mac
A prominent feature of Haihaisoft for Mac is its small size at only 3MB ; this compact PDF Reader for Mac takes up much less space than other programs like Adobe Reader (see below). The package covers a wide range of languages and is designed for ease of use, while it is also well supported and has been developed for use on a number of platforms. Interesting features include:
Key Features:
- Instant launch time
- No background net connection for added security
- Opens all PDF documents
- Protection with DRM-X
6. PDFSam - A New Free PDF Reader for Mac
PDFSam is a relatively new release that has been met with mixed reviews. This free PDF reader for Mac is designed for splitting and merging documents, hence why it is called 'SAM'. Some users report problems while using the application, though generally it is reported to be user-friendly and quick for the average user.
Key Features:
- Split and Merge – (SAM)
- Extract sections as separate PDFs
- Reorder pages when needed
- Compose documents by dragging and dropping
7. PDF Info - An Easy-to-use Free PDF Reader
PDF Info is specifically designed for viewing information stored in PDF documents, rather than actually creating new ones. While it is limited in its operation, it is easy to use and designed in a basic and uncluttered style.
Key Features:
- Easy to install and use
- Quick operation
- View info in PDF
- Very small download size
8. Read Right - A Flexible Free PDF Reader
Read Right is a clever product, designed to tackle the increasing numbers of smaller notebook type laptops. It’s most beneficial feature is that it automatically rotates the screen to fit – book style – on a handheld device, making it much more convenient to use.
Key Features:
- Multiple navigation options
- Zoom control for expansion
- Possible white on black text option for readers
- Returns to the same page after interruption
9. Open Office 3 - A Versatile Free PDF Reader
The latest version of this popular and very versatile Open Office PDF reader is designed for business and personal users to read PDF files on Mac. It includes an impressive new array of features that have been improved and refined. It continues to be one of the leading free PDF readers for Mac on the market.
Key Features Includes:
- Abilityt to import Microsoft Office file types
- Advanced features for note taking
- Chart creation tools
- The ability to export and share spreadsheets
10. PDF Lab - A Well-developed Free PDF Reader
Designed to facilitate the manipulation of documents, PDF Lab is a well-developed and tested platform that is popular with a variety of users. A simple and user-friendly interface lets you use this tool as a PDF viewer. It can be updated through a regular software update, although at times you may have to do manual step-by-step updates.
Key Features:
- Insert images and blank pages
- Create new PDFs
- Split documents into several different files
- Encrypt documents for security
11. Formulate Pro - A Simple Free PDF Reader
This is an easy-to-use and popular program, Formulate Pro does not have a ton of features, but it is a basic and effective tool for amending documents. This tool is not designed for creation of PDFs, but it is certainly an effective reader.
Key Features:
- Open and edit existing PDFs
- Add graphics and other images
- Write using the cursor
- Print out PDFs
12. PDFView - An Impressive Free PDF Reader
PDFView offers a range of impressive features within a compact and easy to use package. It comes highly recommended by many users, and is a great way to read PDF documents. However, one issues is that it is no longer being developed, which means it might not be the best choice for a full-time PDF reader.
Key Features:
- Has many customizable settings
- Fit document to maximum screen size
- Zoom in and out on PDFs
- More features than Preview
Part 2: Troubleshooting on Opening and Reading PDFs in macOS
Many people experience problems when trying to open or read PDFs on Mac. This is due to a variety of reasons, but luckily this problem is usually quite an easy one to solve in just a matter of minutes. Here are the three main reasons why you may have a problem reading a PDF on Mac, and what you can do to solve the problem.
Question 1. Your Web Browser needs Updating
Solution: This is one of the most common problemsthat can prevent you from being able to read a PDF. Not all not all browsers update automatically, and it could be that yours needs a manual update. You can usually run a regular software update, but other times you may be required to update manually through the menu. An outdated browser may be the issue, in which case you may need to update your browser to resolve the issue. You can then make annotations and markups within your document.
Question 2. Your Browser is not Compatible
Solution: This issue depends on your operating system. If you are running OS 10.5 x, as many are, you will find that the later versions of Safari, for example, are non-compatible with your operating system. This will lead to you being unable to open PDFs, as well as a number of other problems. It is recommended that users with this operating system try using Firefox instead, as that may solve the problem.
Question 3. Check the Adobe Reader Plug-in
Best Pdf Reader For Mac
Solution: This problem also affects many users. If you are opening your PDF with Adobe Reader, the Adobe Reader Plug-in can be problematic, especially if it is an automatic launch when you enter your browser. The trick is to delete the plug-in (just the plug in, not Adobe Reader itself). Try using Adobe Reader as a stand-alone program rather than having it run within your browser, and the problem should be solved. You can also re-install the plug-in if necessary.