| Preview | |
|---|---|
 | |
.png) Preview 11.0 running onBig Sur | |
| Developer | Apple |
| Stable release | 11.0 |
| Operating system | macOS iOS 26 iPadOS 26 |
| Type | Image andPDF viewer |
| Website | support |
Preview is the built-inimage andPDF viewer of theiOS,iPadOS &macOS operating system. In addition to viewing, and printingdigital images andPortable Document Format (PDF) files, it can also edit and annotate these media types. It employs theQuartz graphics layer, and the ImageIO andCore Image frameworks.
Like macOS, Preview originated in theNeXTSTEP operating system byNeXT,[1] where it was part of every release since 1989. Between 2003 and 2005,Apple claimed Preview was the "fastest PDF viewer on the planet."[2]
At WWDC 2025, Apple announced that a version of Preview would be coming toiPhone andiPad devices with the release ofiOS 26 andiPadOS 26.[3] In previous versions of these operating systems, the viewing and editing of PDF files and digital images could be done through theFiles orNotes apps.
Preview contains an "edit button", introduced in Version 7, which includes options to insert shapes, lines, and do cropping.
Preview can encrypt PDF documents, and restrict their use; for example, it is possible to save an encrypted PDF so that a password is required to copy data from the document, or to print it. However, encrypted PDFs cannot be edited further, so the original author should always keep an unencrypted version.
Some features which are otherwise only available in professional PDF editing software are provided by Preview: It is possible to extract single pages out of multi-page documents (e.g. PDF files), sort pages, and drag & drop single or multiple pages between several opened multi-page documents, or into other applications, such as attaching to an opened email message.[4]
In the iOS and iPadOS versions of Preview, users also have access to the devices markup tools. This allows signatures, sketches and handwriting to be drawn directly onto the document via touch or theApple Pencil.[5]
Preview offers basicimage correction tools usingCore Image processing technology implemented in macOS, and other features like shape extraction, color extraction, cropping, and rotation tools. When annotating images, Preview uses vector shapes and text until the image is rasterized to JPEG, PNG or another bitmap format.PDF and image documents can also be supplied with keywords, and are then automatically indexed using macOS's system-wideSpotlight search engine.
Preview canrecognize text contained in both text-based document files andbitmapped (non-vector) images like JPEG, PNG etc. It lets you select and copy text to paste into other applications, translate selected text into another language or read aloud using the 'Speak Selection' command of MacOS.
Text recognition was added 2021 inmacOS Monterey.[6] WithApple Intelligence, users can also use writing tools to proofread, rewrite, or summarise selected text.[7]
Preview can directly access image scanners supported by macOS and import images from the scanner. Preview can convert betweenimage formats; it can export to BMP, JP2, JPEG, PDF, PICT, PNG, SGI, TGA, and TIFF. Using macOS's print engine (based onCUPS) it is also possible to "print into" a Postscript file, a PDF-X file or directly save the file iniPhoto, for example scanned photos.
Beginning with Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, Preview restricts the Format option popup menu in the Save As dialog to commonly used types. It is possible to access the full format list by holding down the Option key when clicking the Format popup menu.[8] (GIF, ICNS, JPEG, JPEG-2000, Microsoft BMP, Microsoft Icon, OpenEXR, PDF, Photoshop, PNG, SGI, TGA, TIFF.)
In the iOS and iPadOS versions of Preview, the app can directly scan printed documents using the device's camera. Preview is able to automatically detect and crop the borders of a physical document and convert it into an editable PDF file.[5]
Preview can open the following file types.[9]
InmacOS Monterey and earlier, Preview supported the display ofEPS andPostScript documents using on-the-fly conversion to PDF format. However, this functionality was removed inmacOS Ventura, although users can continue to print.eps and.ps files by dragging them into the printer queue.[10]
The version of Preview included withOS X 10.3 (Panther) could play animated GIF images, for which an optional button could be added to the toolbar.[11] As ofOS X 10.4 (Tiger), Preview lost playback functionality and animated GIF files are displayed as individual frames in a numbered sequence.[12]
{{cite web}}:|last= has generic name (help){{cite web}}:|last2= has generic name (help)The Preview app included with your Mac supports PostScript (.ps) and Encapsulated PostScript (.eps) files in macOS Monterey or earlier. Starting with macOS Ventura, Preview no longer supports these files.
