I just discovered a wonderful “hidden” feature in the “Notes” field that apparently is part of the TextEdit app used for Notes. Maybe I’m the only one who didn’t know about it because I only recently upgraded to El Capitan (from Snow Leopard – I know, I know…). First, you can paste images into the Notes field. They won’t export into Excel, but if you’re planning on using TapForms to manage your data, it’s extremely convenient. But the “hidden” feature I just discovered is that if you select the image, you’ll see a tiny down-facing arrow icon appear on the right. Click that, and there is a “Markup” option. If you choose that, your image will open in a popup window that has all of Preview’s annotation features available. You can add circles and arrows, speech bubbles, and text to your heart’s content, and when you’re finished click “Done”, and the edited image appears in your note! How cool is that?
Can you explain what you mean “but if you’re planning on using TapForms to manage your data”?
I opened TextEdit and copied in a photo and then annotated it, very cool, but then what? Add a note field to TapForms and then copy / paste into the note?
Can you explain what you mean “but if you’re planning on using TapForms to manage your data”?
Some people use TapForms to collect data but then need the processing power of a spreadsheet, such as Excel, to analyze the data, so they export their TapForms data to Excel or to the .csv format. Since TapForms exports data as unformatted text, any images pasted into a “Note” field will not be included in the exported data. If you plan to manage your data entirely in TapForms, however, this won’t be an issue for you. Any images pasted into a “Note” field will be visible and editable in TapForms.
I opened TextEdit and copied in a photo and then annotated it, very cool, but then what? Add a note field to TapForms and then copy / paste into the note?
Sorry, I seem to have confused you with my reference to TextEdit. I mentioned TextEdit only because TapForms apparently incorporates that app’s functionality into the “Note” field. You don’t need to do anything in TextEdit. The process you described can be done directly in a “Note” field in TapForms! Try it – create a Note field, paste in your image, and then select it, and you’ll see it appear in a popup window for annotating, just as it did in TextEdit. When you click “Done” the TapForms “Note” field will display your annotated image! If that’s not clear, I’ll post screenshots.
Notes font styles to use in the field will always be problems. To make data backup, it will have no meaning when exporting to CSV.
Tap Forms is superfluous use of font styles (for me)…
Do you want the font style?
I would very much like to use this feature since, when using the field in a non-Default layout, it will show multiple photos, unlike the native photo field (which just shows the left-most image).
Unfortunately, when I paste (using cmd-v) into the tapforms Notes field and then select the image, I do not see the same little dropdown that I saw in TextEdit. In fact, it doesn’t seem that I have successfully selected the image. I tried:
left-clicking
cmd-A
Shift-click and drag
Sift-click and cursor
Maybe screenshots would help but I must be missing something simple.
The advice about fonts is heeded; I don’t plan to export to csv
It’s a bit tricky, and you were close when you started by shift-clicking, but dragging doesn’t do it. Here’s what works for me:
- Place your cursor directly before or after the image, with no space between the cursor and the image (see screenshot – I made the background of the image transparent so that you can more easily see the cursor, which is immediately after the image).
- Let’s assume you’ve placed your cursor after the image, as in my screenshot. Now, while pressing and holding the shift key, press the left arrow key exactly once to move your cursor backward across the image. This will select the image.
- The tricky part is that if your image has an opaque background (unlike mine), there will be no visual indication that it’s selected (perhaps Brendan can fix this, because it really needs some shading or other visual indicator to show it’s selected); in fact, the cursor will actually disappear completely, but if you’ve been careful to start with the cursor right up against the image and only clicked the arrow key once, it will be selected.
- Now, being careful not to click anywhere (because that would deselect the image), release the shift and arrow keys and hover over the image. That’s when you’ll see a tiny downward-facing arrow appear to the right of the image, as in my screenshot #3.
- Click that arrow, choose “Markup” from the dropdown, and a popup window will open for annotating your image as in the screenshot below. When you’re done, click “DONE” and the annotated image will appear in your Note field.
Brilliant! Success! Somewhat embarrassing that I didn’t try Shift-Arrow. I’m forced to use a Dell for 10 hours a day so switching over to the mac for the evening sometimes causes EBCAK.
This will be a great feature for me to date the photos.
Thanks for sharing.
Yay! (I think you mean PEBCAK, and it isn’t every day I find someone who knows what that means.)
In my acronym “E” stands for “error.” I provide software support so it is an essential acronym right next to the good ‘ole “RTFM.”
Ah! I knew it must be something like that. I’ve always heard the more “formal” version. PEBCAK: “Problem exists between chair and keyboard.” It’s one of my faves.
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