Can I run Microsoft Paint on Mac ? Or are there any similar programs for macOS ?
macOS and Windows users sometimes argue about who has the best third - company software depository library . ( We ’d in all likelihood argue that the Mac pull ahead on that front , although we ’re biased ; although the microcomputer has a larger selection ofgames . ) What gets discussed less often is the quality of the minor pre - installed utilities : the Previews , TextEdits , WordPads and Paints of this world .
But these thing are important , in their small path . Many of us have happy retentivity of playing with modest old Paint on the school computers , for example , and there is n’t an obvious equivalent weight of this on the Mac – most of macOS ’s graphics applications are far more involved and professional than this fun sure-enough bundle .
Well , it ’s not potential to bet Paint on the Mac , but there is a bare paint coating in the preinstalls that you may like to represent around with – you just need to make love where to look . It ’s hidden in Preview !
In this article we show how to access Preview ’s hidden blusher software , and the canonical feature . Basic characteristic are all it has , really , but that ’s not a bad matter .
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How to use hidden paint app on Mac: Open Preview
The Paint - dash features in Preview are most obviously utile for crap simple-minded annotation to subsist images . Drag the image you wish to annotate on to the Preview icon in the Dock , if Preview is already candid or live in the Dock full time ; if not , decently - click the image and take Open With > Preview . ( Depending on your options , it is very likely that image files will default to Preview if double - clicked . )
you may also open up Preview by opening the Applications folder and doubly - clicking the Preview icon .
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How to use hidden paint app on Mac: Open Markup Toolbar
Preview ’s most ordinarily used tools are related to mode of viewing and sharing images : whizz , rotate and so on . But if you get across the ikon just next to the Search theatre of operations – it looks like a little tool chest – then Preview will open up up its Markup Toolbar , which contains some simple but useful annotation instrument .
How to use hidden paint app on Mac: Annotate your image
Let ’s go through the most important editing / markup putz .
Selection
On the far left you ’ll discover a figure selection tool , which can be used to snap up a rectangle , oval or manually select cast from the image and then edit it , copy and paste it , and so on . ( There ’s also a ‘ Smart Lasso ’ that is like the Polygon Selection tool but will try its adjust its selection to form and colour closure in the image . We ’ve found it a minute unreliable – give it a try for yourself . )
Sketch and Draw
The third and 4th tools along are Sketch and puff respectively . They seem the same at first – both are straight hold pen pecker that countenance you draw freely on the persona in whatever colour has been selected in the dropdown three from the rightfield – but the results are very dissimilar .
Draw simply accepts your mark and submit it as a transferrable layer ; Sketch understand the shape you ’ve made and sort of smartens it up , so a rough lot will turn into a right circle , a rough rectangle will get utterly square side and so on . you could easily create speech bubbles , by the way , by summate a little pointy bit to your sketched ellipsis , and Preview will give it a different coloured Department of the Interior where you could easy add text .
Talking of text , that ’s added using the sixth shaft along . It ’s added slightly counterintuitively : Preview plainly drops a pre - filled textbook box into the substance of your simulacrum as before long as you click the Text tool . Move it wherever you desire it , and click to replace the textual matter with whatever you ’d prefer .
The last tool we ’ll cover is the Sign tool – the 7th tool along . Click this and Preview will walk you through the process of inputting your theme song digitally . you’re able to do this on a trackpad , or signal a spell of white-hot paper and hold it up to the television camera .
Once you ’ve created a digital signature , you have only to click the Sign tool icon again and a movable transcript of your signature will be dropped on to the image .
We look at this useful feature of speech in more depth elsewhere : How to create a digital signature on Mac .
