TMO Quick Tip - Preview PDFs on the Quick

by , 7:30 AM EDT, April 16th, 2008

Just like there's more than one way to view a PDF document in Mac OS X, there's also more than one way to quick preview a PDF without opening the file. Most Leopard users are probably already familiar with Quick Look and its ability to preview PDF documents, but the Finder's column view lets you preview PDFs, too, and without requiring that you take your hand off your mouse.

Make sure you are using a Finder window that's set to column view, and then just select the PDF you want to check out. Now hover your mouse pointer over the PDF preview icon in the farthest right Finder window column to reveal forward and back buttons that let you navigate through previews of each page in the document.


Hover over a PDF to preview multiple pages.

This is an easy way to flip through the pages in a PDF without first opening the document, and it's a handy way to find just the document you want when you have several PDFs that are similar.