Zooming PDFs in Preview

Dec 13, '01 09:45:24AM

Contributed by: robg

When you open a PDF in Preview, it opens at actual size, which is usually too small for me on my desktop machine (at 1600x1200 resolution). Unfortunately, it's not very obvious how to make it bigger yet still fit the window size you'd like to use. You can't use the window resize widget, because it doesn't do anything. You can use Zoom In, but it zooms so much on the first use that you can't see a full page.

But once you've hit Zoom In, the window resize widget becomes usable. So when I open a PDF in Preview, I hit "Zoom In" (command-up arrow) twice, which makes it gigantic, then resize the window to my liking, and then select "Zoom to Fit" (command-equals). This resizes the page to fit the box I've defined, instead of forcing me into one of the predefined zoom levels.

The other option, which is what I've personally done now, is to change all PDFs to open in Acrobat Reader, which allows much easier control of zooming!

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