Using Mail Markup

With OS X Yosemite you can mark up images and PDF files right inside of the Mail composition window. This can make it easy to send notes and revisions back and forth between people working on projects. You can also add signatures to PDFs easily in a reply. The same tools are available in the Preview app outside of Mail. In the future, Apple and third-parties can add more extensions like Markup.

You can also watch this video at YouTube (but with ads).

Video Transcript: Hi this is Gary with MacMost.com. On today's episode let's take a look at using the new Mail Markup feature in Yosemite.
So to use Mail Markup I'm in Yosemite and I'm in the Mail app here. I can compose a new message and attach an image to it, do it that way, or I can be replying to an email with an image in it. So here is one with an image attached to this email. I'm going to reply to it.
Now under my options under Edit and Attachments I have Include Original Attachments in Reply. So as I hit Reply what will happen is I will get the Reply and I'll be able to very easily mark it up. The image is there. If I didn't have that option selected then the image wouldn't be included. But I have the option to go to Edit and then I can change that on the fly there and it would throw the image in.
So I'm replying and there is the image. There is a question here and I'm going to use Markup to mark up the image. That's how I did it. Just that little box there and select Markup. I've got the image now and I've got all these tools there. These are the same tools that are in the Preview app but now I can use them to do various things.
For instance I can draw a circle and move it around. I can do some free style drawing here with this tool. I can change the line size, I can change colors, all sorts of things. I can even use text. So I can change the font there and I can add text there by clicking there and then I've added two pieces of text. I can change them, move them around, and delete them very easily just by selecting and hitting delete. It works very similar to how things work in Pages, Numbers, and Keynote but exactly how they work in Preview.
When I'm done I hit Done and you can see the image now has those markups included in it. So it allows me to very quickly go back and forth.
So say if I am designing a website and we want to go back and forth on the screen shot of the website or an image to be used, I can mark things up about the image, put some comments on it, and send it right back. The person at the other end, if they are using Yosemite, they can do the same thing. We can go back and forth very fast just using Markup right here to draw directly on the image and I never have to leave the Mail app.
Now you can do this for more than just images. I've got an email here that has got a pdf in it. I can do the same thing here. I'm going to reply to this message and it is going to include my attachment automatically. I've got Markup there. So I can do Markup with the pdf. I have the same tools here at the top as I had before and I can do the same basic things. 
Note that I also have the ability to use a signature here. This is the same as it works in Preview. I can create a signature. It will use either my track pad I can sign or I can use my camera to capture one. If I did that it would remember it here, instead of the John Hancock signature, and I can then easily insert it. 
So if you get a document and a please sign this and email it back to me you can do that very quickly and easily. When you are done you can see it is just imbedded here in the pdf. So it works in images and pdf.
There are also some special tools in there that I want to point out. So let's create a new mail message here. I'm going to attach, in the mail message, an image. Notice I have all this. Not only can I attach an image just as a file but I can use the Media section here on the left side of the file dialogue to go to my Photo Library here and I can grab an image, like this one, and put it in. This is where I can use Markup right here. The same as if I am replying to a message.
I can do the same stuff here. Here are the special tools. There is this tool here which basically highlights a specific area. So you can highlight an area like that. If I were to click outside that area it is basically like a negative select. I can here and then here is where I can now do things. So it is a good way to highlight something. Just hit the Delete key to get rid of it. 
I also have this Magnifier here that I can select a spot and magnify it. I can use the blue dot to make a larger circle and I can use the green dot to click and drag to change the magnification. So it is very useful for then attaching to an email message when you want to point something out in a photo.
If you do want to use those tools but not necessarily having to do with an email message they are all available in the Preview app. So in the Preview app you can open up an image say and right in there you can see the Tools button here and it brings up these tools here at the top which are the same and there are actually a few extra ones as well. But you can do the same kind of thing here with the tools here that you can do with Markup. Then you can save or export this out.
There is also some excitement for the future here because if you notice every time I went to the button here to bring up Markup it is actually just the first option. The other one is More. More will actually launch extensions. So you can see that Markup is actually just an extension for Mail that is provided by Apple. Third party companies will be able to add to this list. So there will be maybe more complex markup type of things or other things that you will be able to do with images and pdf inside of mail in the future.

Comments: 166 Responses to “Using Mail Markup”

Will Rhea

10 years ago

Thanks Gary for doing this video about Mail Markup. I was going to email you and ask for one about the mail markup feature. Very helpful - thanks a lot.

Kigara Kamweru

Always useful. Thanks.

Scott Beattie

Thanks Gary - another useful video.

Gary Ward

It does not seem that markup does not work with a 2011 iMac, the little icon for markup does not appear, also the attachments automatically come up when doing anything with that email

Russ Winkler

Thanks, It will be great if Evernote Skitch can be used as a third party markup.

Comments Closed.

Using Mail Markup

Comments: 166 Responses to “Using Mail Markup”

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