Quick Actions and Markup Files

In this video, we’re going to look at Quick Actions, where we can rotate a file, mark it up, or even create a PDF out of an image in macOS Mojave. Let’s take a look at Quick Actions, including Markup in macOS Mojave. Let’s go to my Mac. I’m in my Finder window here, and I’m looking at my downloads.

If we look here, I have a number of files. What I would like to do is I would like to see a preview of these. When I see a preview of these, what I’m able to do, in addition to seeing what type of file it is and how large it is, I’m also able to rotate it, if it’s an image, or create a PDF out of it, if it’s an image. If it’s a PDF, I’m able to mark it up. With movies and audio files, I’m able to trim it.

Now, the first thing we need to do to do this is show our preview. Our preview shows up to the right of our file list. In my case, what I need to do is I need to show that preview. Now, what I do is I go up under View, and then you’re going to see Show Preview. If your preview is showing, this will say Hide Preview, so you don’t have to do anything. This is only if you do not see your preview. Let’s select it.

Now, when we have our file selected, I have my photo selected, over to the right, we have our preview. With our preview, I can see the file’s name, what type of file it is, how large it is. I can also see when it was created, modified, and last opened. Well, if we look down towards the bottom, you’re going to see we have a number of quick actions.

What I can do is I can rotate this photo to the left, just click on it, and we can see that it’s rotating. I can also mark it up. We’ll take a look at Markup later on in this lesson. Then, being that it’s a photo when I click on More here, I can also create a PDF out of it. With images, what I’m able to do is I’m able to rotate, Markup, and create a PDF. Let’s take a look at a PDF.

I’m going to go over to my iPhone Development Cookbook. This is a PDF. I select it. Now, again, we can see that it’s a PDF document and the size. Down at the bottom, you’re going to see that we only can mark this up. Again, we’ll take a look at Markup later on in this lesson. Now let’s take a look at a movie. I’m going to click on my ziplining movie here.

Now, when I move my cursor over here, I can play the movie. If we look down towards the bottom, I can rotate it again, and I can also trim it, being that it’s a movie. Let’s go ahead and trim it. I click on it. It opens up. Now, all I need to do is drag this handle here over to the right to where I want to trim it to. Then, I can also drag this handle to the left and drag to where I want to trim it to. When I’m finished, I click on Done, and it’ll trim that movie. I’m going to go and revert this, and then I’m going to go and close this.

Now, let’s take a look at how we Markup documents. We can Markup both PDFs and photos. What I’m going to do is I’m going to go over to my beach photo here, and then we’re going to go over to Markup. I click on it. Now, when we look up at the top here, you’re going to see we have a number of markup tools.

Our first tool here is a pen tool. What I can do is I can draw on the image. All I have to do is drag it, and I drew a circle. If I want to change the color, I have it selected. You’re going to see I have these blue dots here to change the color. I go over to the color here. If I want to fill it, I click on the fill color. I’m going to go and delete this. I select it and then hit delete. I also can add a shape. Click on this, and I have a number of different shapes that I can add, including arrows.

Then, I can also add a magnifier. I click on this, and you’re going to see I have a small magnifier here. What I’m going to do is I’m going to drag this out a little bit. Let’s make this a little bit larger. To make this larger, I drag the blue dot. I drag this out. Now, what I want to do is I want to increase the magnification. To do that, we take our green dot here, and I drag this around the circle. You’re going to see I’m magnifying into, or zooming into, that photo. I’m going to delete it. I click on it to select it and then hit the delete key.

I can also add text. Then, I can add a signature. To the right, we have our line thickness. If I were to draw a line or a shape, I could adjust the line’s thickness. Then, if I add text, I can go and format the text. Keep going over to the right. I have my rotate tools. Then, I can also crop the image. When I’m finished, I click on Done. When I click on Done, it allows me to open this up in Preview. I am in Quick Look now.

What is Quick Look? Well, with Quick Look, what we’re able to do– This is nothing new in macOS Mojave. With Quick Look, what I’m able to do is take a quick look at a file without actually opening it. To do that, we hit the space bar. I’m in Quick Look right now. How do I close this? I hit the space bar, and it closes. Now, I want to take a quick look at this travel brochure. This is done in Pages. I hit the space bar, and now I can see a quick look at that file. If I want to open it up, I click on Open with Pages.

Again, Quick Look is nothing new in macOS Mojave, but with macOS Mojave, what we can do is now edit our files, our pictures, and movies without actually opening them. Again, let’s go over to my ziplining. I hit the space bar; I get a quick look, there’s about the ziplining. If I wanted to modify this, I can rotate it, and then I can also trim it. I can also go down to my tools here, my quick action tools, to do the same thing.

Now, if you no longer want to see your quick actions here, what you do is you go up to View in the menu bar, and then we go over to Show Preview Options. This is where we set what options we want to have in the preview, which is where our quick actions are. I select this. Now, what I can do is I can turn off Show Quick Actions. When I turn this off, I no longer have my quick actions.

Those are the new quick actions, including marking up a file in macOS Mojave.