The Joys of Quick Look

by Claire J Rottenberg
CJRTOOLS ebooks

One of the great new features of Leopard, Quick Look, can change the way you view documents, images and video files. Before discovering the joys of Quick Look, I was constantly wasting time launching different programs to view files. Now, I just hit the Space Bar and have instant access to the content of most files. In this article, I’ll discuss the ways you can save time with Quick Look and how to enjoy this new Leopard treasure.

Viewing Text and PDF Files

Select a text or PDF file, press the Space Bar and the Quick Look window will open, displaying the first page of the document. Click a button on the bottom of the window and suddenly your document can be read in full-screen. Even multipage documents can be read – just move your mouse along the scroll bar on the side of the document to move through the pages. In less time than it might take to open a document in MS Word or Adobe Reader, you can read several pages of the document. Think of all the time you’ve saved if you need to read many documents.

Viewing Images

Images, too, can be viewed in full-screen mode with Quick Look. You can even view an entire folder of images as a beautiful full-screen slideshow. And, as you view the images, you can easily add them to iPhoto with just a click of a button. You no longer need to wait for that slow image editing program of yours to open when you want to find a particular image. Do a search with Spotlight, select all the images in the search results window and press the Space Bar to open up the Quick Look window. Click a button and icons of all of the images will appear in the Quick Look window or move through the images by pressing the arrow keys on your keyboard. Nothing could be easier for browsing through image files.

Viewing Video Files

Videos can be played directly in a Quick Look window and you no longer need QuickTime to view full-screen videos. Select a video, press the Space Bar, click the full-screen button, and sit back and enjoy your favorite video. It’s the quickest and easiest way to view videos. And, for even more control, the Quick Look window includes a slider that you can use to move to your favorite sequence in a video.

Using Quick Look in Time Machine

By now you might be impressed with Quick Look, but wait, this treasure has another great feature. Take a trip with Time Machine, Leopard’s automatic backup program, and you’ll find Quick Look also works in that environment. Select any file from any date, press the Space Bar and preview the file with Quick Look before deciding if it’s the file you need. With Time Machine and Quick Look, you’ll never restore the wrong file. Restoring files can’t get better or easier than this.

If you haven’t tried Quick Look, select a document, image, or video, press the Space Bar and discover the joys of this little treasure in Leopard.

Claire J Rottenberg is the author of Easy Guides to Mac OS X software (Safari, Mail, System Preferences, TextEdit) and Course Books on iPhoto ‘08, iTunes and Mac OS X 10.4. More information on her books is available on the CJRTOOLS ebooks website (http://homepage.mac.com/cjrtools/ebooks).