HOWTO | Get more out of Quick Look
1
Preview images
Drag a large photo to Finder and use Quick Look to preview it. The cursor keys can be used to navigate the Finder window in the background, to view other images. Hold å in OS X Mavericks to zoom the image to full-size. Use two-finger drags to scroll the zoomed photo.
2
Check multi-page docs
Preview multi-page docs, such as a PDF of MacFormat or a Pages file, to read and twofinger swipe between pages. Or, click a thumbnail to go to a page. On the keyboard, this works with Page Up/Down keys ( ƒ+ up/ down on keyboards without a number pad).
3
Try to preview a Zip
Although Apple has added support for lots of file types, Quick Look doesn’t accommodate them all. Try previewing a Zip archive in Quick Look and you’ll only see a massive icon, the file name, the archive’s size, and its modification date.
4
Install a plug-in
Quick Look plug-ins are here to help. Go to macitbetter.com/BetterZip-Quick-LookGenerator/ and download the plug-in. In ~/ Library ( å- click Go in Finder to access it), create a folder called ‘QuickLook’ (no space) and copy the plug-in to it. Zip previews now display more.
5
Find more plug-ins
Many plug-ins are available. Some you pay for, such as Code Line’s Art View (code-line. com/artview/) for Adobe CC, but many are free. See qlplugins.com. To remove one, delete it from the QuickLook folder. To install one for every user, put it in /Library/QuickLook.
6
Activate text copying
Quick Look is read-only, but you can use Terminal to make it copy. Type defaults write com.apple.finder QLEnableTextSelection -boolean true; killall Finder. You now see the selection bar when you hover over text in a previewed item. Type ‘false’ not ‘true’ to revert.
7
Preview from Spotlight
Hover over a Spotlight results list item and you get a Quick Look preview. This isn’t as full as the standard one, but you can still navigate multi-page documents by swiping. And, hover over the preview and hold ç and å and the path to the document is displayed.
8
Use the Trackpad
You can use the Trackpad, with any modern Mac, to bring up Quick Look. Go to System Preferences and click Trackpad. In the Point & Click tab, note the gesture for Look up. Return to Finder, perform that action on a file and Quick Look activates!