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It's not paint but Preview.app can crop, edit and annotate screenshots. A handy tip is to include control in the Mac screenshot keyboard command (e.g. ⌘⇧⌃3) to

It's not paint but Preview.app can crop, edit and annotate screenshots. A handy tip is to include control in the Mac screenshot keyboard command (e.g. ⌘⇧⌃3) to have the output piped to the clipboard instead of a file. Then in Preview.app, File > New opens the contents of the clipboard in a new window. While I'm at it, ⌘⇧4 (and ⌘⇧⌃4) lets you interactively select an arbitrary region. Also ⌘⇧4–Space (and ⌘⇧⌃4–Space) let you grab a single window directly from the compositor. Which means you always get the full window, including its alpha channel. Even if the window is obstructed or partially off-screen, you still get the whole thing including its transparent drop-shadow.

mercer 9y ago
Is there a Preview.app equivalent for Windows these days? It was one of my favorite new tools when I switched to Mac back in the day, because for windows I had to download special 'see all types of files + basic editing' programs.
- iaskwhy 9y ago
  Not really, no, but Chrome supports some files: pdf, txt, images... View mode only, obviously.
- krylon 9y ago
  For simply displaying PDF (and a few other formats), I like SumatraPDF. It is pretty lightweight (compared to the crawling horror that is Adobe Reader), and when you re-open a PDF, opens it at the position you were last time(!!!). The latter feature makes it perfect for viewing reference manuals etc. EDIT: https://www.sumatrapdfreader.org/free-pdf-reader.html https://www.sumatrapdfreader.org/free-pdf-reader.html EDIT²: IrfanView can display many graphic formats and quite a few that are not strictly speaking graphics. Plus, it has some basic image editing capabilities (resize, rotate, ...).
  - vram22 9y ago
    Interesting, have you tried Foxit PDF Reader, and if so, how does it compare to SumatraPDF? I haven't used the latter but have used the former.
    - krylon 9y ago
      I know Foxit Reader. SumatraPDF is fairly minimalistic, it is a single executable file that runs without installation. Foxit has far more features than SumatraPDF, it is more like the slim sibling of Acrobat (no insult intended!). (SumtraPDF.exe is something like 3.5 MB, Foxit's msi package is something like 70 MB, IIRC) But Foxit never has given me any reason to complain. I have across a few tricky PDF files that took forever to open in Acrobat, and Foxit (and SumatraPDF) handled those without trouble. Plus, it installs a PDF printer, which is convenient on pre-Windows 10 machines.
      - vram22 9y ago
        Thanks for the inputs. My experience with Foxit is mostly good, like yours has been. Will still check out SumatraPDF too.
  - mercer 9y ago
    Ah yes, IrfanView was what I always used! Is there any particular reason why Microsoft hasn't included a built-in IrfanView/Preview.app at this point?
tritium 9y ago
Preview.app fucking sucks. There are a handful of truly obnoxious sins that OS X commits, and not providing a graphics editing application with full access to the pixel raster is one of them. Other sins include no trivial click path to instantiating an empty file on the desktop. One must open an application and either issue a command (touch or similar) or save an empty file with the application used (TextEdit.app for example). This is inconsistent with the fact that you can create folders in the context menu, but not files. OS X discourages thinking in terms of the file system in general, by dumbing down the interface with "shortcuts" like All My Files, and buries the root hard disk partition many layers deep, in the default interface, forcing users to surface the usual affordances through several settings in multiple preferences menus. This creates a natural bias against proper command of one's data, among novice users, and promotes sloppy, confused organizational skills and inefficient usage patterns that eat the fuck out of hard drive space, leading inexperienced users to purchase unnecessary upgrades, in order to solve behavioral problems in hardware. OS X also pushes users away from non-binary file formats, defaulting most formats to favor non-plain-text and targets closed formats that leave the user unable to look at file contents in a common universal manner. This leaves non-technical and less-technical users in a world where only "apps" can inform you of mere parts of your data. Again, users are not thinking in terms of files on disk, or discrete packets of information. Data lives in indescribale places at locations they often can only describe by "way finding" through pointing and clicking or tapping. There is no path, or tree, or name, or directory, or disk to these people, and thus no file or disk space to think of. Text resides is fields, images in albums or galleries, on and on. Have you met or spoken with younger non-technical people lately. They are lost and beyond clueless about a lot of important things. This is in many ways due to Android and iOS (which in turn influences OS X). Linux is hardly a presence in the desktop world. And now Windows is going the same way. Dark days ahead.
- sneak 9y ago
  What do you need empty files for?
  - sjwright 9y ago
    I think he said they save you from having to surface the usual affordances through several settings in multiple preferences menus. Or something.
mschaef 9y ago
Thanks.... all this is great stuff. (Particularly the bit about going straight to the clipboard.)

mercer 9y ago

Is there a Preview.app equivalent for Windows these days? It was one of my favorite new tools when I switched to Mac back in the day, because for windows I had to download special 'see all types of files + basic editing' programs.

iaskwhy 9y ago
Not really, no, but Chrome supports some files: pdf, txt, images... View mode only, obviously.
krylon 9y ago
For simply displaying PDF (and a few other formats), I like SumatraPDF. It is pretty lightweight (compared to the crawling horror that is Adobe Reader), and when you re-open a PDF, opens it at the position you were last time(!!!). The latter feature makes it perfect for viewing reference manuals etc. EDIT: https://www.sumatrapdfreader.org/free-pdf-reader.html https://www.sumatrapdfreader.org/free-pdf-reader.html EDIT²: IrfanView can display many graphic formats and quite a few that are not strictly speaking graphics. Plus, it has some basic image editing capabilities (resize, rotate, ...).
- vram22 9y ago
  Interesting, have you tried Foxit PDF Reader, and if so, how does it compare to SumatraPDF? I haven't used the latter but have used the former.
  - krylon 9y ago
    I know Foxit Reader. SumatraPDF is fairly minimalistic, it is a single executable file that runs without installation. Foxit has far more features than SumatraPDF, it is more like the slim sibling of Acrobat (no insult intended!). (SumtraPDF.exe is something like 3.5 MB, Foxit's msi package is something like 70 MB, IIRC) But Foxit never has given me any reason to complain. I have across a few tricky PDF files that took forever to open in Acrobat, and Foxit (and SumatraPDF) handled those without trouble. Plus, it installs a PDF printer, which is convenient on pre-Windows 10 machines.
    - vram22 9y ago
      Thanks for the inputs. My experience with Foxit is mostly good, like yours has been. Will still check out SumatraPDF too.
- mercer 9y ago
  Ah yes, IrfanView was what I always used! Is there any particular reason why Microsoft hasn't included a built-in IrfanView/Preview.app at this point?

tritium 9y ago

Preview.app fucking sucks. There are a handful of truly obnoxious sins that OS X commits, and not providing a graphics editing application with full access to the pixel raster is one of them. Other sins include no trivial click path to instantiating an empty file on the desktop. One must open an application and either issue a command (touch or similar) or save an empty file with the application used (TextEdit.app for example). This is inconsistent with the fact that you can create folders in the context menu, but not files. OS X discourages thinking in terms of the file system in general, by dumbing down the interface with "shortcuts" like All My Files, and buries the root hard disk partition many layers deep, in the default interface, forcing users to surface the usual affordances through several settings in multiple preferences menus. This creates a natural bias against proper command of one's data, among novice users, and promotes sloppy, confused organizational skills and inefficient usage patterns that eat the fuck out of hard drive space, leading inexperienced users to purchase unnecessary upgrades, in order to solve behavioral problems in hardware. OS X also pushes users away from non-binary file formats, defaulting most formats to favor non-plain-text and targets closed formats that leave the user unable to look at file contents in a common universal manner. This leaves non-technical and less-technical users in a world where only "apps" can inform you of mere parts of your data. Again, users are not thinking in terms of files on disk, or discrete packets of information. Data lives in indescribale places at locations they often can only describe by "way finding" through pointing and clicking or tapping. There is no path, or tree, or name, or directory, or disk to these people, and thus no file or disk space to think of. Text resides is fields, images in albums or galleries, on and on. Have you met or spoken with younger non-technical people lately. They are lost and beyond clueless about a lot of important things. This is in many ways due to Android and iOS (which in turn influences OS X). Linux is hardly a presence in the desktop world. And now Windows is going the same way. Dark days ahead.

sneak 9y ago
What do you need empty files for?
- sjwright 9y ago
  I think he said they save you from having to surface the usual affordances through several settings in multiple preferences menus. Or something.

mschaef 9y ago

Thanks.... all this is great stuff. (Particularly the bit about going straight to the clipboard.)