Not interested in attracting mosquitoes? Keen to save battery and power? Find out here how to quickly turn off the screen on a Mac at any time using the mouse or the keyboard.
Inspired by Apple's Automator application, Fake looks like a combination of Safari and Automator that allows you to run (and re-run) 'fake' interactions with the web. Power Users will love Fake for automating tedious web tasks like filling out lengthy forms and capturing screenshots. Preview is the vendor-supplied image viewer and PDF viewer of the macOS operating system. In addition to viewing and printing digital images and Portable Document Format (PDF) files, it can also edit these media types. You can use Apple's built-in app Automator or third-party macro recorders. First, let's learn about Mac's Automator. You can use it to record various workflows like workflow in the print dialogue, set quick actions in Finder windows, Touch Bar, or when calendar events occur, and beyond. Create even more powerful Mac versions of your iPad apps. Apps built with Mac Catalyst now take on the new look of macOS Big Sur and help you better define the look and behavior of your apps. You can choose to turn off automatic scaling of iPad controls and layout, allowing you to precisely place every pixel on the screen.
First, a Goddess Wrapped around the Dark Side
of the known earth had an important function in Ancient Egypt: Nut swallowed the sun at night to end the day and, in the morning, gave birth to it so a new day could begin.
Now, how about having your Mac screen's bright light swallowed at will and any time (without putting the whole computer to sleep)?
How to Turn Off the Screen on a Mac (Without Putting It to Sleep)
Using a Keyboard Shortcut
Time needed: 1 minute.
To quickly turn off your Mac's screen at any time:
- Press ControlShiftEject.
Tip: The Eject key usually shows ⏏.
Note: If your Mac's keyboard lacks an Eject key, you can use hot corners to black out the screen using mouse or trackpad or set up a custom keyboard shortcut; see below. - Press and key, click a mouse button or tap on a trackpad to wake the screen again
Note: Merely moving they mouse pointer or touching the trackpad will not turn on the screen.
Hours later…
Ready to go to sleep now but your Mac apparently is not? How to find out why your Mac Is not going into sleep mode
Using a Hot Corner on the Screen
To set up a corner on the screen to turn off the display:
- Select System Preferences… from the Apple () menu.
- Open the Desktop & Screen Saver category.
- Make sure you are on the Screen Saver tab.
- Click Hot Corners….
- Now pick a corner to turn off the screen and select Put Display to Sleep for that corner.
Tip: You can require one or more keys to be pressed while the mouse cursor is in the corner for the display to be turned off; hold down the desired key or keys (Command, Control, Option, Shift and any combination) while selecting the Put Display to Sleep from the corner action's menu.
Hint: You can make more than one corner turn off the Mac screen, too. - Click OK.
Now, to turn off the screen with a flick of the mouse cursor:
- Move the mouse cursor to any corner configured to turn off your Mac's screen.
Hint: If your hot corner requires holding down a key, you can let go of the key before you release the mouse.
Using the Command Line
To immediately turn off the screen on any Mac running macOS from Terminal (or any tool that can run command line scripts and applications):
- Open Terminal.
- Type
To create your own keyboard shortcut for putting the display (but not the Mac itself) to sleep — if your keyboard lacks an Eject key, for instance:
- Open Automator.
- Click New Document.
- Select Quick Action.
- Click Choose.
- Select no input under Workflow receives at the top.
- Click Library if you do not see the command library.
- Drag and drop the Run Sheet Script action to the workflow.
Tip: Search the library forshellto quickly find the action. - Type
pmset displaysleepnowfor the shell script. - Select File | Save from the menu.
- Enter the desired name (say, 'turn off screen') for the new quick action's name.
- Click Save.
- Now select | System Preferences… from the menu.
- Go to the Keyboard category.
- Open the Shortcuts tab.
- Select Services.
- Highlight the quick action just created ('turn off screen') under General.
- Click Add Shortcut.
- Type the desired key combination for turning off the display.
How to Turn Off the Screen on a Mac Notebook That Uses an External Display
To turn off only the screen on your Mac laptop (MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, etc.) while working on an external display:
- Connect the Mac laptop to a power source.
Tip: This can be a power cord, of course, but also a display that powers the computer through USB-C. - Use an external mouse or trackpad and keyboard to operate the laptop.
Note: The devices can connect via USB or Bluetooth. - Now connect the Mac laptop to an external monitor.
Note: Depending on the ports on the display and laptop, you may have to use an adapter.
Tip: Connect the external monitor while the laptop is asleep if it fails to turn on. - Close the laptop's lid for macOS clamshell mode.
- Press a key (or click with the mouse) to wake the external display.
How to Turn Off the Screen on a Mac Laptop Connected to an External Display While Using the Built-In Keyboard and Trackpad
To turn down a Mac laptop's screen without closing its lid while you use it with an external display:
- Connect the laptop to an external monitor.
- Open System Preferences.
Tip: Select | System Preferences… from the menu. - Go to the Displays category.
- Now go to the Arrangement tab.
- Turn on Mirror Displays.
Tip: Switch to the Displays tab and pick the external display under Optimize for if the monitor resolution seems off. - Go to the Display tab.
- Turn down the Brightness to its very minimum.
Note: This will almost (but not quite) turn off the screen and Automatically adjust brightness is disabled.
Tip: Use the laptop's function keys to turn up the brightness if the external display disconnects and you sit in front of a black screen.
How to Turn Off the Screen on a Mac: FAQ
How can I make sure my Mac does not go to sleep with the display off?
Of the countless ways to keep a Mac awake, one is particularly easy and typically at hand:
- Open Music on Mac (or iTunes).
- Pick a random song.
Tip: I'm partial to Telemann, Paul Desmond, and Silvius Weiss; and a few precious birds' songs, of course. - Play it on repeat.
Be safe: Do not play a radio station; iTunes may automatically stop playback after some 2 hours or when it runs out of things to play deemed interesting enough.
Tip: You can set up a keyboard shortcut for looping one song.
Looking for a nonmusical solution? Find out how to prevent a Mac from sleeping.
(How to turn off the screen on a Mac tested with macOS Big Sur 11.0 and macOS Catalina 10.15; updated January 2021)
| Operating system | macOS |
|---|---|
| Website | support.apple.com/guide/preview/welcome/mac |
Preview is the vendor-supplied image viewer and PDF viewer of the macOS operating system. In addition to viewing and printing digital images and Portable Document Format (PDF) files, it can also edit these media types. It employs the Aqua graphical user interface, the Quartz graphics layer, and the ImageIO and Core Image frameworks.
History[edit]
Like macOS, Preview originated in the NeXTSTEP operating system by NeXT,[1][2] where it was part of every release since 1989.
Supported file types[edit]
Preview can open the following file types:
- AI – Adobe Illustrator Artwork files (if PDF content included in file)
- BMP – Windows Bitmap files
- CR2 – RAW Image file used by Canon Cameras
- DAE – Collada 3D files
- DNG – Digital Negative files
- EPS – Encapsulated PostScript files (after an automatic conversion to PDF)
- FAX – faxes
- FPX – FlashPix files
- GIF – Graphics Interchange Format files
- HDR – High Dynamic Range Image files
- ICNS – Apple Icon Image files
- ICO – Windows icon files
- JPEG – Joint Photographic Experts Group files
- JPEG 2000 – JPEG 2000 files
- OBJ – Wavefront 3D file
- OpenEXR – OpenEXR files
- PDF – Portable Document Format version 1.5 + some additional features
- PICT – QuickDraw image files
- PNG – Portable Network Graphics files
- PPM – Netpbm Color Image files
- PNTG – MacPaint Bitmap Graphic files
- PPT – PowerPoint files
- PS – Adobe PostScript files (after an automatic conversion to PDF)
- PSD – Adobe Photoshop files
- QTIF – QuickTime image files
- RAD – Radiance 3D Scene Description files
- RAW – Raw image files
- SGI – Silicon Graphics Image files
- STL – STereoLithography 3D format
- TGA – TARGA image files
- TIF (TIFF) – Tagged Image File Format files
- XBM – X BitMap files
The version of Preview included with OS X 10.3 (Panther) could play animated GIF images, for which an optional button could be added to the toolbar. As of OS X 10.4 (Tiger), Preview lost playback functionality and animated GIF files are display as individual frames in a numbered sequence.[3][4]
Features[edit]
Editing PDF documents[edit]
Preview can encrypt PDF documents, and restrict their use; for example, it is possible to save an encrypted PDF so that a password is required to copy data from the document, or to print it. However, encrypted PDFs cannot be edited further, so the original author should always keep an unencrypted version.
Some features which are otherwise only available in professional PDF editing software are provided by Preview: It is possible to extract single pages out of multi-page documents (e.g. PDF files), sort pages, and drag & drop single or multiple pages between several opened multi-page documents, or into other applications, such as attaching to an opened email message.
Editing images[edit]
Preview offers basic image correction tools using Core Image processing technology implemented in macOS, and other features like shape extraction, color extraction, cropping, and rotation tools. When annotating images, Preview uses vector shapes and text until the image is rasterized to JPEG, PNG or another bitmap format. PDF and image documents can also be supplied with keywords, and are then automatically indexed using macOS's system-wide Spotlight search engine.
Import and export[edit]
Automator Mac App
Preview can directly access image scanners supported by macOS and import images from the scanner. Preview can convert between image formats; it can export to BMP, JP2, JPEG, PDF, PICT, PNG, SGI, TGA, and TIFF. Using macOS's print engine (based on CUPS) it is also possible to 'print into' a Postscript file, a PDF-X file or directly save the file in iPhoto, for example scanned photos.
Beginning with Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, Preview restricts the Format option popup menu in the Save As dialog to commonly used types. It is possible to access the full format list by holding down the Option key when clicking the Format popup menu.[5] (GIF, ICNS, JPEG, JPEG-2000, Microsoft BMP, Microsoft Icon, OpenEXR, PDF, Photoshop, PNG, SGI, TGA, TIFF)
New features in Version 7[edit]
A new 'edit button' where the picture can be edited is introduced in Version 7. The 'edit button' allows options to insert shapes, lines, do cropping, and among other things.
How to Turn Off the Screen on a Mac: FAQ
How can I make sure my Mac does not go to sleep with the display off?
Of the countless ways to keep a Mac awake, one is particularly easy and typically at hand:
- Open Music on Mac (or iTunes).
- Pick a random song.
Tip: I'm partial to Telemann, Paul Desmond, and Silvius Weiss; and a few precious birds' songs, of course. - Play it on repeat.
Be safe: Do not play a radio station; iTunes may automatically stop playback after some 2 hours or when it runs out of things to play deemed interesting enough.
Tip: You can set up a keyboard shortcut for looping one song.
Looking for a nonmusical solution? Find out how to prevent a Mac from sleeping.
(How to turn off the screen on a Mac tested with macOS Big Sur 11.0 and macOS Catalina 10.15; updated January 2021)
| Operating system | macOS |
|---|---|
| Website | support.apple.com/guide/preview/welcome/mac |
Preview is the vendor-supplied image viewer and PDF viewer of the macOS operating system. In addition to viewing and printing digital images and Portable Document Format (PDF) files, it can also edit these media types. It employs the Aqua graphical user interface, the Quartz graphics layer, and the ImageIO and Core Image frameworks.
History[edit]
Like macOS, Preview originated in the NeXTSTEP operating system by NeXT,[1][2] where it was part of every release since 1989.
Supported file types[edit]
Preview can open the following file types:
- AI – Adobe Illustrator Artwork files (if PDF content included in file)
- BMP – Windows Bitmap files
- CR2 – RAW Image file used by Canon Cameras
- DAE – Collada 3D files
- DNG – Digital Negative files
- EPS – Encapsulated PostScript files (after an automatic conversion to PDF)
- FAX – faxes
- FPX – FlashPix files
- GIF – Graphics Interchange Format files
- HDR – High Dynamic Range Image files
- ICNS – Apple Icon Image files
- ICO – Windows icon files
- JPEG – Joint Photographic Experts Group files
- JPEG 2000 – JPEG 2000 files
- OBJ – Wavefront 3D file
- OpenEXR – OpenEXR files
- PDF – Portable Document Format version 1.5 + some additional features
- PICT – QuickDraw image files
- PNG – Portable Network Graphics files
- PPM – Netpbm Color Image files
- PNTG – MacPaint Bitmap Graphic files
- PPT – PowerPoint files
- PS – Adobe PostScript files (after an automatic conversion to PDF)
- PSD – Adobe Photoshop files
- QTIF – QuickTime image files
- RAD – Radiance 3D Scene Description files
- RAW – Raw image files
- SGI – Silicon Graphics Image files
- STL – STereoLithography 3D format
- TGA – TARGA image files
- TIF (TIFF) – Tagged Image File Format files
- XBM – X BitMap files
The version of Preview included with OS X 10.3 (Panther) could play animated GIF images, for which an optional button could be added to the toolbar. As of OS X 10.4 (Tiger), Preview lost playback functionality and animated GIF files are display as individual frames in a numbered sequence.[3][4]
Features[edit]
Editing PDF documents[edit]
Preview can encrypt PDF documents, and restrict their use; for example, it is possible to save an encrypted PDF so that a password is required to copy data from the document, or to print it. However, encrypted PDFs cannot be edited further, so the original author should always keep an unencrypted version.
Some features which are otherwise only available in professional PDF editing software are provided by Preview: It is possible to extract single pages out of multi-page documents (e.g. PDF files), sort pages, and drag & drop single or multiple pages between several opened multi-page documents, or into other applications, such as attaching to an opened email message.
Editing images[edit]
Preview offers basic image correction tools using Core Image processing technology implemented in macOS, and other features like shape extraction, color extraction, cropping, and rotation tools. When annotating images, Preview uses vector shapes and text until the image is rasterized to JPEG, PNG or another bitmap format. PDF and image documents can also be supplied with keywords, and are then automatically indexed using macOS's system-wide Spotlight search engine.
Import and export[edit]
Automator Mac App
Preview can directly access image scanners supported by macOS and import images from the scanner. Preview can convert between image formats; it can export to BMP, JP2, JPEG, PDF, PICT, PNG, SGI, TGA, and TIFF. Using macOS's print engine (based on CUPS) it is also possible to 'print into' a Postscript file, a PDF-X file or directly save the file in iPhoto, for example scanned photos.
Beginning with Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, Preview restricts the Format option popup menu in the Save As dialog to commonly used types. It is possible to access the full format list by holding down the Option key when clicking the Format popup menu.[5] (GIF, ICNS, JPEG, JPEG-2000, Microsoft BMP, Microsoft Icon, OpenEXR, PDF, Photoshop, PNG, SGI, TGA, TIFF)
New features in Version 7[edit]
A new 'edit button' where the picture can be edited is introduced in Version 7. The 'edit button' allows options to insert shapes, lines, do cropping, and among other things.
Issues[edit]
As of OS X 10.9.2, Preview does not support ISO-standardized PDF (ISO 32000), and when saving, destroys aspects of PDF files without warning to the user.[6][needs update]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^NeXTSTEP promotional brochure from 1995.
- ^'The many superpowers of Apple's Preview app: Part 1'. Macworld. Retrieved 2017-11-18.
- ^Use Preview to play animated GIFs
- ^Preview for Mac: View animated GIF files in Preview
- ^'Convert Images in Mac OS X: JPG to GIF, PSD to JPG, GIF to JPG, BMP to JPG, PNG to PDF, and more'. OS X Daily. 2010-01-24. Retrieved 2017-01-08.
- ^Johnson, Duff (7 April 2014). 'Apple's Preview: Still not safe for work'. Duff Johnson Strategy & Communications. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
Automator Mac Os
External links[edit]
- AppleInsider review from 2003
- MacProNews article: PDF and Panther: The Hidden Role of PDF in Mac OS X 10.3 from July 2004
- Sams Publishing sample chapter on Preview from Mac OS X Panther Applications and Utilities. Includes some instructions for use, with screenshots.
Automator Macos
