Using fillable forms

With certain PDF files known as fillable forms, you can enter information and either save or print your changes. You can’t create fillable forms in Preview (you need Adobe Acrobat Pro or Smile’s PDFpenPro to do that), but you can fill out someone else’s PDF form, like any of the forms and publications from the IRS. Simply open the file, click on one of the fillable form fields, and enter your information. Once you’ve filled out the form in full, go to File > Save or File > Save As… to save the info you added or create a filled duplicate of the original form with a different file name.

Making annotations

When reviewing a document, I like to take notes directly in the document. This is particularly useful when interviewing job candidates, for instance. Using Preview, you can highlight, underline and strike through text; add notes and text boxes; and even some draw some limited graphics like lines, boxes, circles and arrows in PDF documents. To access the annotation toolbar in Preview, click on the Annotate button in Preview’s toolbar. In Snow Leopard, the annotation toolbar will appear at the bottom of the window. In Lion, a redesigned annotation toolbar will appear at the top.

Managing signatures

A new feature in OS X Lion’s version of Preview is the ability to manage signatures. This is great if you don’t have a scanner or fax machine handy. You can even create and manage a collection of various signatures. Create a new signature in Preview by following these steps:

1. Open a PDF in Preview and click on the Annotations toolbar button.
2. Click on the Signature button on the Annotation toolbar and select “Create Signature from Built-in iSight…”
3. Hold up a signed piece of paper to the camera and align it with the blue line.
4. Click “Accept” to add it to your library of signatures.
5. Add it to your PDF document from the Annotation toolbar the same way you would an arrow, text box or note.

Creating a duplicate

Since you’re technically editing the PDF file when adding annotations, saving a copy of the original as a new file might make sense. But if you’re using Lion, you can simply create a copy of the document by selecting “Duplicate” from Preview’s File menu. This is a lot easier than finding the document in the Finder, creating and renaming the file before opening, or even using the “Save As…” command.  If you have already made changes to the document before you duplicate, you will be presented with an option to revert your changes in the original, and create a duplicate copy that has all of your changes intact.

Any other tips for using Preview with PDF files? Share them in the comments.

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Since Jobs mentioned the coming update for the iPad last September, users have been wondering when multi-tasking and other features promised in 4.2 would actually arrive. The new page doesn’t answer that question, but it does provide a more detailed glimpse at what the update will provide.

Let’s talk about some of the new features iOS 4.2 will bring to your iPad that the iPhone already has. You’ll finally be able to switch between apps and play audio content in the background with Multitasking. Folders will allow you to cut down on the number of home screens on your iPad. Finally, Game Center and advanced Mail options (unified inbox, threaded messages) round out the pack.

There are a few new (unreleased for any iOS devices) things to be excited about, too. AirPrint (which, since it’s featured on the new Apple site, obviously isn’t being cancelled, regardless of what some think) will allow you to print mail, photos, and web pages to printers on your wireless network. AirPlay wirelessly streams videos, music, and photos to new models of the Apple TV, and streams music to AirPlay-enabled speakers and receivers or the Airport Express.

Other coming features include finding text within web pages and keyboard/dictionary and accessibility enhancements. With enhanced enterprise support, Apple offers businesses stronger security and device management options, which should help further Apple’s cause in bringing iOS to business IT.

Additionally, iOS 4.2 is being hailed as a performance improvement for 3G users. So, if you rushed to update your older iPhone and are now ready to throw it at the wall for its painfully slow speed, hang on a little bit longer because things could get better.

Various sites are reporting inside sources as mentioning that the update will release sometime this week. The new release of this information suggests it’ll be a few days still before the update arrives, because otherwise Apple wouldn’t have bothered. You may want to watch for the next iTunes update, as it often precedes an iOS update.

UPDATE: As readers have noted, the page itself isn’t new, but the “Coming Soon” tag is. The content of this article has been updated to reflect that.

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In this TechUniversity Preview screencast (subscription required), we’ll take an in-depth look at both PDF and image functionality.

For PDF documents, we’ll cover:

• Combining PDFs
• Searching PDFs
• Bookmarking PDFs
• Annotating PDFs

For images, we’ll cover:

• Selection Tools
• Slideshows
• Adjustment Tools

View the full Preview screencast on TechUniversity (subscription required)

Screencast Sample

Recently, Apple introduced preview launch pages for its iTunes musical content. The new pages, which replace the boring “iTunes is launching, please wait” dialog that used to appear, provide basically a snapshot of what you’ll find when that iTunes icon eventually stops bouncing and you’re taken to the relevant page on the iTunes store. And now iPhone apps have received the same treatment.

The launch page you now receive when you click App Store links looks pretty much exactly like what you’ll see in iTunes itself. Product description, recommended apps, screenshots and user reviews — it’s all there. Apple also benefits by providing you with the Apple web site’s top navigation bar, so that customers clicking through are now also potentially rerouted towards the company’s other products and offerings.

Is the web preview a good idea? I guess so, especially for Apple’s new customers, who might be confused or put off by links that just open an application on their computer with little or no explanation. And it’s good for Apple, as I’ve just mentioned, since it acts as a kind of light up-selling tool. But as an experienced user who doesn’t appreciate being sold to when I’m already trying to buy something, I see little point in the entire iTunes Preview concept.

Not that it’s completely without merit. In fact, there’s a very simple way to make the whole thing extremely useful and get rid of the annoyance that some feel when inadvertently clicking .itms links. I’m talking about just using iTunes Previews, without the simultaneous opening of iTunes itself. This is one of the few times I will actually advise the implementation of a user interface element that actually adds a step instead of taking one away, but in this case it just makes sense.

The launch pad tells you everything you need to know, since it literally contains all the information available on the item’s iTunes store page. Let us as customers pause there, reflect, perhaps preview songs, etc. and click through to other app previews, and then provide a link to open iTunes. I suspect even just the sense of agency this will allow consumers will help boost actual purchase numbers. And Apple still gets the chance to up sell using the navigation bar. Everybody wins.

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The sequel to Tweetie, the Twitter client that earned itself the much-coveted Apple Design Award earlier this year, is on its way to the App Store as you read this.

For the past few weeks I’ve been part of Loren Brichter‘s Tweetie 2 beta program, testing out new features as the former Apple engineer constructed his new Twitter client.

Brichter has rebuilt Tweetie from the ground-up. The sequel incorporates features such as app persistence, offline mode, drafts, threaded conversations, landscape support and much more.

Read on for an in-depth look at what to expect from Tweetie 2.

Look & Feel

While Tweetie 2 incorporates an updated aesthetic, it won’t be difficult for both new and veteran users to get to grips with the app. More so impressive is how the app incorporates a raft of new features without overwhelming the user.

Even after playing with Tweetie 2 for a few weeks, I’m still discovering new functionality. For instance, when replying to a tweet you can now drag down with your finger to “peek” at the original message.

It’s a small feature indeed but finding these kind of miniscule updates brings to mind that satisfied glow we all get when discovering new features in OS X. In essence, skimming through tweets, tapping out messages and finding new folk to follow looks and feels great with Tweetie 2.

Writing & Replying

Composing richer tweets is easier now. Tweetie 2 lays out the different options clearly so that you can quickly add content to your latest 140 character micro-opus. In a given tweet you’re able to access your Twitter address-book and @ messages, search current hashtags, geotag your tweet and add photos too.

Plus, just like with Tweetie on OS X, you can now shrink URLs with the tap of a button. Obsessively attentive readers may have noticed me video tweeting from Big Bird over the past few weeks, that’s because Tweetie 2 also incorporates video tweeting from the 3GS.

There’s also a wealth of options available beyond simply retweeting a message from someone that you’re following. Now you can quote the tweet, post a direct link, translate and even e-mail the tweet to a friend — all without leaving the app itself.

For prolific Twitter users there’s now a drafts manager. This means that you can write and save a stack of tweets for posting later on. I’ve found that it’s particularly handy to have several drafted tweets ready to go just incase you get hit by a case of tweeter’s block.

Browsing the Timeline

The app now features full persistence. This means that if you’re, say, tapping through a prolonged conversation and then you quit the app, you’re able to pick up exactly where you left off. Every single time you exit, the app remembers your place and drops you right back there.

Offline reading has been incorporated too. You’re now able to compose those witty little one-liners while offline, save them to your drafts, and unleash them on the Twittersphere next time you’re online. Even users or tweets you follow, block or favorite while offline will be synced back to the server.

Exactly like the desktop version of Tweetie, there are now threaded conversations, making it much easier to jump into an ongoing discussion and catch up with what you missed. Also, although I don’t use any read this later services, some users will be pleased to note that there’s Read It Later and Instapaper support too.

One of the most ingenious little additions to the timeline view is the “drag to refresh” gesture. Instead of tapping a refresh button, you simply scroll to the top of the timeline and then drag down. It works as intended and, thanks to the gesture combined with a sound-effect and flippy-floppy arrow, it feels tangible and satisfying.

Landscapes & Locations

Not only can you compose a tweet in landscape view, the entire app can be browsed in landscape view. I appreciate that some users may have been waiting for this, however it’s not a feature that I particularly wanted, nor do I make use of now that it’s here. If I could find the button to turn off auto-rotate, I would do so.

Setting that little niggle aside, the Nearby tweets feature has received a much-needed overhaul too. The original Tweetie displayed an odd looking radar animation before loading a basic, but functional, timeline of tweets nearby your current location.

The new Tweetie loads up a Google Map and then pops up tiny speech bubble icons representing all the tweets in your vicinity. It’s an effective way of sorting through local tweets and is a more creative approach than the standard timeline view.

And There’s Even More…

There are details and small features that you almost certainly won’t come across within the first few days of using the app. For instance, Brichter has now included profile editing from within the app.

Another feature that I just picked up on today is the ability to tweet simultaneously from multiple accounts. When composing a tweet you simply tap the “New Tweet” header at the top of the screen and then select the other accounts that you’d like to post the message from.

The Bottom Line

The app is a standalone purchase, as opposed to an update/upgrade. It’ll be available in the App Store soon for only $2.99, just like the original iPhone Tweetie. There’s also an update to the Mac version on the way, however this will be a free update to current owners of Tweetie for OS X.

If you’re unfamiliar with the current state of Twitter clients, we’ve got a great roundup here on TheAppleBlog. It’s worth noting that the original Tweetie came out on top as one of the top clients.

The new app definitely gets a thumbs-up from me, although I’d be interested to know which of you will be upgrading to Tweetie 2 when it comes out.

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Sprouter, like many web apps these days, takes some significant cues from Twitter. In fact, at first glance, it appears to be pretty much Twitter designed for a specific target audience: entrepreneurs.

Unlike Twitter, at Sprouter you have a dedicated profile page. It still keeps things short and sweet, rather than presenting a wealth of info like you might find on Facebook or LinkedIn, but you have enough space to let other entrepreneurs know a bit about you. You also get access to a follower/following count, just like you have with Twitter.

Also borrowed from Twitter is the 140-character limit for your posts, for which Sprouter provides the slightly more business-oriented prompt “What are you working on?” You can use hashmarks to flag posts with specific tags, and this is where Sprouter really starts blooming. Hashtagged terms automatically appear as tags at the bottom of your post composer, and they form the basis for two things: topics and events.

Clicking on any hashtag will automatically return a page for that term, which will tell you what it signifies, who its owner or creator is, and whether it’s an event or just a general topic. You’ll also see a list of posts containing that hashtag, and have the option to follow the tag itself, right from within the app, which is something you definitely can’t do from the basic Twitter app.

If you’re a fan of tweet-ups, industry-specific chats and online conferences, Sprouter is for you. It also has great promise for people looking for real-time collaboration and feedback from other entrepreneurs and web workers, without the static, background noise and spam that comes along with Twitter.

While Sprouter is in private beta for the time being, its creators are aiming for a launch in the fall, and the service seems to be pretty solid in its current state, so I wouldn’t anticipate a long wait before it goes public. The people behind Sprouter are also planning on integrating the service with desktop applications and outside services, so it stands to become even more useful down the road.

Have you tried Sprouter? Let us know how you think it compares to Twitter in the comments.

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Finally, as Simon mentioned last week, we Apple fans have got a Chrome build near enough completion to get worked up about. It isn’t anywhere near a proper final build, but it does work well enough that I felt comfortable using it to compose this piece. It’s good enough for most web work that doesn’t involve using Flash (which is almost all of it, in my case, I’m realizing).

The software is still prone to crashes, but the nice thing about Chrome crashes is that they stay isolated. Firefox still crashes on me with fairly alarming frequency (I’m using the latest stable build, not the beta preview), and when it does, it takes all 15 of my open tabs with it. Yes, “Restore previous session” generally eliminates any cause for concern, but I still find it irksome.

Chrome also feels just as speedy as its Windows counterpart (see Sam’s post “Latest Google Chrome Release Is a Speed Demon“), which is to say, it feels very fast indeed — faster than Firefox, and faster even than Safari, the latest build of which received acclaim for its speed benchmarks.

Some basics are still lacking, like the ability to print pages, and an easy way to fullscreen your browser window, but rather than hindering my workflow, these limitations are mostly just serving to illustrate how little I take advantage of most of these features on a daily basis.

A couple of crucial components still lacking in the test build are security and privacy filters, so if you are going to start using Chrome as part of your workflow, make sure to do so with that in mind. It’s probably to keep sensitive tasks and data relegated to the latest stable builds of Firefox, Safari and Opera. For more details and to download the new build, check out the official Chromium blog.

Have you installed Chrome for Mac? Let us know how you’re getting on in the comments.

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There’s one sure way to stay out of trouble, and that’s to wait to launch your web site until you actually have some content in a presentable form to show people. If, for whatever reason, you can’t wait that long (maybe your client wants to build the sort of anticipation normally reserved for companies like Capcom and Apple, for instance), then your placeholder should be functional rather than static. That’s where LaunchSplash comes in.

With this new web app, you can quickly and easily create a standby splash page to help visitors feel like they haven’t completely wasted their time by visiting your site, and help make sure they actually come back when you do have something to show off. It only took me two brief screens and all of about 30 seconds to create this, which is infinitely better than a static page with, say, an animated .gif of a hard hat and construction tape.

Built in to every LaunchSplash page is a mailing list that people can sign up for to receive updates about your web site. You can track sign-ups at the LaunchSplash site via your Page Editor. You can also tweak your template, colors, graphics, and even the CSS of your page to make it match your brand image. You can even use Google Analytics or any JavaScript traffic tracking snippet to check your site’s visitors, all from a visual dashboard — handy if you’re not HTML-savvy. If you already have your own domain, you can map it to LaunchSplash’s servers to display your preview page automatically.

With their basic free plan, you can create up to two Launch pages, and access all the free templates. Upgrading to one of their three paid plans ($5, $15 and $25 per month) will get you access to special “Premium” templates and the ability to create more simultaneous launch pages. I don’t see why you’d need more than one, unless you’re a lazy web designer who really likes to procrastinate, but maybe that’s their target market. Regardless, the free account is a great idea if you’re not able to set up your home on the web just yet, but want people to be able to go somewhere and see something on the web that refers to you or your brand.

What do you think of the LaunchSplash app?

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News of the Mac app’s imminent release came yesterday (fittingly) via atebits’ own Twitter account, linking to a brief video on the atebits web site previewing the app. The trailer reminds me a little of an Apple commercial, thanks to the look and the sexy soundtrack. What’s more impressive, though, is the functionality the preview shows off. Tweetie for the Mac already looks like a heavily favored contender for best native OS X Twitter app.

Screen grab from the preview

The interface looks simple, but powerful, with a main window for displaying tweets and a sidebar on the left for quickly accessing your tweet stream, @replies, private messages, and search. You can switch between multiple accounts on the fly, just by clicking the appropriate profile icon in the same left-hand menu.

Other features include threaded conversations, that you access just by clicking on a reply, iChat style DM exchanges, easy nested navigation at the top of the app’s interface, drag and drop image sharing, in-app twitpic viewing, built-in searching, and link sharing via a bookmarklet for your browser. I’m sure there’s plenty more, but we’ll have to wait till this upcoming Monday to find out. I know I’ve got my day cleared.

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For basic photo editing, if you’re running OS X 10.5 Leopard you don’t need Photoshop Elements or Pixelmator. Leopard’s Preview graphics viewer application is much more than a viewer; it now incorporates some very handy image correction tools that are not only user-friendly and intuitive to use, but also work really well.

Consequently, if you take digital photos or scan transparencies or prints onto your computer and want to optimize them, you may not need a traditional image editor application at all. Preview can do the job for you.

New Tools

Check out Preview’s new Tools Menu. If you’re familiar with the Tools Menu in OS 10.4 Tiger Preview, you’ll note that there are some new selections.

Now, say you’ve downloaded a photo from your camera, and you’re not quite happy with the exposure, color rendering, or other picture attributes. For example, here is a photo of a beach near my home. It’s straight out of the camera (an old, 3.2 megapixel unit) and is a bit underexposed, has a greenish tinge, and it isn’t as sharp as it probably should be.

So, open the image file in Preview and choose Adjust Color from the Tools Menu. A translucent black color and exposure adjustment palette will appear, with ten sliders that facilitate the adjustment of exposure, brightness, contrast, saturation, temperature, tint, sepia, black level, white level, and sharpness.

Real Time Feedback

The adjustment sliders give you real time feedback, and I have found that they work beautifully. I love to play with all possibilities, and after my adjustment efforts, my beach photo now looked like this. It definitely has more brightness and pop and I like the color balance better. I was also able to make it sharper, although in cranking up the brightness I lost the cloud detail in the sky.

However, if you’re pressed for time, or are not quite sure what adjustment/correction effects you would like, just click the Auto Levels button and the program will make its best guess as to what the optimum values should be, automatically adjusting the sliders. You can still tweak individual qualities if you wish before saving the image. Here’s Preview Auto Levels’ best guess for my beach shot. I like my manual effort better, but it does retain the cloud detail.

Best All Around Tool For Simple Image Correction?

What both surprised and delighted me the first time I used it is how well this all works, and from one simple palette too. I’m not sure that this isn’t the all-round best tool I’ve ever used for this sort of image correction. It’s certainly the most convenient, and has added a great deal of value to the Leopard Preview application from my perspective.

But there’s more. Preview now has an image scaling and resizing tool as well, allowing you to conveniently and quickly change a photo’s resolution. Just select Adjust Size from the Tools Menu, and either manually enter the desired dimensions in the provided fields, or pull down the menu and choose one of the resolution selections provided. You can also change the resolution of your picture (number of pixels per inch) by setting it in the resolution box.

Of course, if you need to do more advanced correction such as red eye or spot removal, or retouching, you’ll still need an application like Photoshop Elements, Pixelmator, or iPhoto. But for basic exposure, color and sharpness correction, Preview is now a very quick, handy, and effective tool.

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