Adventures | For Derek

Rectangular Text Selections in Preview

by Derek—2004.09.20 @ 1218

While I was playing with screenshots in OS X, I came across a feature I didn't know existed: non-linear text selection in Preview.

Non-linear Selections

Newer versions of BBEdit offer this functionality and I was pleasantly surprised to find out that other OS X applications offer this wacky feature. Instead of highlighting words and paragraphs in order, you can actually select blocks of text in any order. Interesting.

The keyboard command to create rectangular text selections in Preview is:

    COMMAND + OPTION + 3 + DRAG SELECTION

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