how to rotate annotations in Preview

[Doug Lassiter]

Preview allows one to continuously rotate annotations using two fingers on a trackpad. How can you do such rotations if you don't have a trackpad?

 

[IWT]

Hi Doug

I presume we are talking about a Mac? If no trackpad, use a Mouse. Open the doc in Preview, look on the Menu Bar and Click on the Rotate icon as in this screenshot:



Or have I misunderstood your problem?

Ian

 

[chscag]

Like Ian, I'm not sure what it is you're trying to do?

 

[MacInWin]

I know what he wants, but I don't know how to rotate without a trackpad. For those who want to experiment:

Open Preview, then open any image (Make a copy, the annotation process gets saved).
Now open the Tools menu on the top bar of Preview, and select Annotate. I chose Text, made it large enough to see and typed in a few letters. Now with the text surrounded by the selection box, you can drag top, bottom, sides to change, and on a trackpad, with two fingers you can rotate it to any angle you may want. But there does not seem to be a "spin" button to use with just a mouse. I did do a short movie to show it, but the site won't let me upload it as media or attach it as a file. Maybe the MODS ought to look at that as a failure of the board?

 

[chscag]

I did do a short movie to show it, but the site won't let me upload it as media or attach it as a file. Maybe the MODS ought to look at that as a failure of the board?

What format is the movie using? MP4? or something else?

I believe Nick and I have discussed this before but I'm not sure what format XenForo accepts as an upload. I'll try to check this out and let you know.

Charlie

 

[chscag]

@Jake:

I found the discussion that Nick and I had about video uploads not working. Apparently it is not allowable without permissions and that will require making some changes to the software. Even I do not have permission to upload a video.

We will look into this further. Sorry about the inconvenience. Growing pains.

 

[MacInWin]

It is a .mov file, if that is of any help. The Attach Files button left it greyed out, the attach Media only allows attaching a video from public spaces I don't frequent.

 

[krs]

Preview allows one to continuously rotate annotations using two fingers on a trackpad. How can you do such rotations if you don't have a trackpad?

Couple of comments:
1. I haven't tried this with a track pad, have to borrow a laptop to try it.
But from what I read previously when this question came up, when you rotate the annotations that way they "jump back" when you let the fingers go.
2. The Preview rotate Ian mentions rotates the image, not the annotation.In any case, that rotation in Preview only rotates in 90 degree steps, not continuous.
3. The only way I know how to do this is to use another image application that can rotate the image any number of degrees, rotate the image the number of degrees you want the annotation to be but in the opposite direction, then add the annotation, and then rotate the image back to its original position.
That way the annotation will end up at the angle you selected.

In the attached example, I added the annotation "Sail" to the image at a 45 degree angle

 

[MacInWin]

@krs, that is not correct. Preview CAN rotate an annotation on a trackpad, just not, apparently, with a mouse. They stay rotated, don't jump back. I'll do one and post it here:


I took your image, screen captured it, then added via Preview a Text box that I then rotated to fit the other sail. Didn't rotate back, saved it and there it is.

 

[krs]

Thanks, Jake

I stand corrected.

I was just quoting what I read on line - wouldn't be the first time the on-line info is incorrect.

 

[RadDave]

@krs, that is not correct. Preview CAN rotate an annotation on a trackpad, just not, apparently, with a mouse. They stay rotated, don't jump back. I'll do one and post it here:

View attachment 32759
I took your image, screen captured it, then added via Preview a Text box that I then rotated to fit the other sail. Didn't rotate back, saved it and there it is.

Well, have to agree w/ Jake - took the same image and added my name as a text box - then w/ 2 fingers on my trackpad, kept one steady and turned the other which did rotate the text box, as seen below - now have not checked this on my iMac w/ a mouse - although a frequent user of Preview, I have never used this feature in the past. Dave
.

 

[chscag]

I wonder if the same thing can be done using an Apple Magic Mouse? Gestures on the Magic Mouse are similar to that of a trackpad. Anyone want to try?

 

[MacInWin]

I did try, did not work. Only on the trackpad, at least for me.

 

[chscag]

I did try, did not work. Only on the trackpad, at least for me.

Certainly is strange that it can only be done on a trackpad.

 

[Doug Lassiter]

Sorry, I lost track of this discussion. The responses here are correct. Two fingers on a track pad rotates an annotation by any selectable amount. I tried it on my MBP, and it works! THAT'S what I want to do, but without a trackpad. That rotate button just flips things by 90 degrees.

So the answer is that no, you can't do it. I find it odd that something you can pull off with a trackpad you can't do, even with terminal entry, without one.

 

[krs]

I find it odd that something you can pull off with a trackpad you can't do, even with terminal entry, without one.

When I was looking at options how to do this without a track pad, I actually came across comments that one can do this via the terminal but I didn't pursue this further so I don't know if that actually works.
If you google you should be able to find that and try it.

 

[MacInWin]

I can't imagine how to rotate a graphic element with a terminal command would work. Not saying it cannot be done, but how would you even hope to control it given that the movement would be invisible in the terminal environment? Might be theoretically possible but I'm not sure it's practical.

 

[krs]

What I remember is that you enter the number of degrees into that terminal command.

Same idea when I used Seashore for the example with the sailboat I posted. There one also enters the number of degrees - I picked 45 degrees.

There are some apps where one gets a box of the active items with handles on each side that one can grab with the mouse and then turn on the screen, but nothing built into macOS as far as I know.
If you don't have a lot of annotations that need to be at an angle, you can always do it the way I did it with just a mouse.

Or buy a track pad to plug into the Mac, but those are around $125.-

 

[krs]

I just came across this where one can supposedly rotatean image in Preview by very fine steps by holding down the option button.
I tried it on Mojave - doesn't work. When I hold down the option button and rotate, the rotate option just changes direction.

However, those post a are from 2005, at the time it seems there was actually both a rotate right and rotate left button and with those one could rotate in fine steps. Looks like a featurethat has disappeared from Preview.
Here is the link: http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2005012115382953

 

[krs]

I can't imagine how to rotate a graphic element with a terminal command would work. Not saying it cannot be done, but how would you even hope to control it given that the movement would be invisible in the terminal environment? Might be theoretically possible but I'm not sure it's practical.

This came up as the terminal command, it rotates the image, not sure if one can select the annotation that way and turn just that.

If you're not averse to using the command line, you can use the sips command to rotate images. For example…
sips -r 23 --padColor FFFFFF image.jpg

…will rotate image.jpg 23 degrees clockwise and "fill in" the empty space with white. (If you rotate PNGs, the alpha channel should be retained.)

Is it possible to rotate images in Preview in degrees other than 90?

I want to rotate an image in preview but I only need to move it a few degrees. Is this possible? Or can you only rotate 90 degrees?

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