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Q&A for power users of Apple hardware and software

Latest Questions

0 votes
3 answers
130 views
Download image from html Canvas element in macOS Safari?
Websites such as this one use the HTML canvas element to display images. https://digital.gonzaga.edu/digital/collection/p16011coll4/id/93/rec/5 The Safari Web Inspector's `Graphics` tab shows cut-up tiles of the image that can be saved independently. But doesn't give the full-res combined image. [![...
Websites such as this one use the HTML canvas element to display images. https://digital.gonzaga.edu/digital/collection/p16011coll4/id/93/rec/5 The Safari Web Inspector's Graphics tab shows cut-up tiles of the image that can be saved independently. But doesn't give the full-res combined image. enter image description here I want to save the image from the canvas, not via an alternative method. [Sometimes](https://oregondigital.org/concern/images/df70cx57n) websites like this have a "download" link, but in this case it does not. Inspecting the source [shows a low-res image used in the preview thumbnail](https://digital.gonzaga.edu/digital/api/singleitem/image/p16011coll4/93/default.jpg) but the canvas appears to load a different, higher-resolution version of the image. Ideally could be done from the macOS Safari Web Inspector. I would also be interested in any Safari Extensions that enable this functionality. How can I get/export/download the full-resolution combined image being displayed by this canvas element?
pkamb (9620 rep)
Jun 3, 2025, 06:40 AM • Last activity: Aug 1, 2025, 05:05 PM
0 votes
1 answers
89 views
My Graphic Card on Macbook Pro 2020 doesnt work correctly
This is my Macbook: [![enter image description here][1]][1] And when I open google maps, 3d view, then my fan starts working very loud. And this is how it looks: Is everything ok with this? Is my graphic card working fine? [![enter image description here][2]][2] [1]: https://i.sstatic.net/ju8yG.png...
This is my Macbook: enter image description here And when I open google maps, 3d view, then my fan starts working very loud. And this is how it looks: Is everything ok with this? Is my graphic card working fine? enter image description here
Bartłomiej Semańczyk (2445 rep)
Nov 14, 2020, 10:32 AM • Last activity: Jul 22, 2025, 12:08 PM
8 votes
4 answers
11676 views
Convert SVG to PDF using command line in Mac OSX
I want to convert a SVG file to PDF from the command line on Mac OSX. Is there any way to do this?
I want to convert a SVG file to PDF from the command line on Mac OSX. Is there any way to do this?
melqkiades (339 rep)
Mar 10, 2022, 02:24 PM • Last activity: Jul 17, 2025, 04:00 AM
4 votes
1 answers
1215 views
Why is my iMac slowing down under multiple users?
**Hardware:** I have a 2014 iMac 5K. It's got 24GB of RAM and a 2TB SATA SSD I installed myself last summer. Full specs here: https://support.apple.com/kb/SP707?locale=en_US **Software:** Catalina 10.15.7 is installed. I have a total of three user accounts set up: one for my wife, and two for me (on...
**Hardware:** I have a 2014 iMac 5K. It's got 24GB of RAM and a 2TB SATA SSD I installed myself last summer. Full specs here: https://support.apple.com/kb/SP707?locale=en_US **Software:** Catalina 10.15.7 is installed. I have a total of three user accounts set up: one for my wife, and two for me (one for home, one for work). Her account is signed in under her Apple ID, my two accounts are both signed in under my Apple ID. **The Problem:** When I first boot up the machine, it runs perfectly. Boots up very fast, accounts log in fast, everything runs quite smoothly. I use it for basic web stuff, email, iMessage, some Creative Cloud work, text-based work. All of this works very well, even more demanding stuff like Final Cut Pro and transcoding the occasional video. But over a period of 3 or 4 days, even under very light use, things just get slower and slower. When I say "things" I mean specifically graphics on screen -- Mission Control and Fast User Switching become incredibly slow. Windows respond slower and slower to resize, lagging behind the cursor as if the machine is struggling to draw the graphics. When it gets bad enough, it can't even keep up with *highlighting text* in some apps and in web pages. If I log out of other accounts and pare it down to one, it seems to relieve the pressure a bit, but if I keep logging in and out of user accounts without restarting, it just slows down more and more over a few days until, again, it's basically unusable. Eventually I just have to restart -- at least once a week and sometimes more than that. Then it's very fast again until a few days later. In all of this, Activity Monitor looks basically normal as far as I can tell. The only thing that stands out is WindowServer, which will spike up 70-100% and not really settle down much below 50%. But the fans never go crazy, the CPU load never looks bad, the memory pressure stays low (again, there's 24GB of RAM). This issue has been with me for a couple of years now. I hoped that pulling out the Fusion Drive and replacing it with a pure SSD would help, but no such luck. I hoped Catalina would solve it, but not at all. What's so vexing about this is that this iMac runs SO well when I first restart it, but I can't keep it working that way unless I were to (I guess) run a single user account which I don't want to do. I have worked with separate home and work Mac user accounts for probably 8 years now, and never had issues with it, even on much more modest hardware. I would also add this: I'm seeing a similar problem on my 2020 MacBook Air under Big Sur. Multiple users + staying logged in for a while = the machine slows down over the course of a week or so. This makes me wonder if there's just some inherent bugginess in the way MacOS handles multiple users these days. Even if nobody has a solution to this, I'd love to hear about it if anyone else is seeing multiple user issues in MacOS these days. **edit:** Per @Gilby's suggestion that this might be related to being logged into two user accounts with the same Apple ID, I've spent a week logged into only one of said accounts. Indeed, the severe slowdowns I was seeing have *not* manifested after a week of uptime working this way. So, I have to conclude that the issue is related to the "two user accounts, same Apple ID" setup. It's a real shame, as I'd been working this way for some years without issue until I think Mojave or Catalina when it started to cause difficulties. I'm leaving this question up, for now, in case anyone has further insights or workarounds.
Gorb (195 rep)
Apr 1, 2021, 09:55 PM • Last activity: Jun 8, 2025, 08:01 PM
2 votes
1 answers
2599 views
Graphics glitch - checkered pattern in Chrome
I've had this MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019) for a while now, but today it glitched out with huge green fields in all apps. After a reboot I see this checkered black/green glitch pattern in Google Chrome on some sites, in some "sizes". Basically if I resize the browser window the glitch goes away, but...
I've had this MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019) for a while now, but today it glitched out with huge green fields in all apps. After a reboot I see this checkered black/green glitch pattern in Google Chrome on some sites, in some "sizes". Basically if I resize the browser window the glitch goes away, but if I resize it too much it comes back. Happens both on the internal and on external display. I am hoping this is a software glitch, but I am afraid it's my graphics card. Would be very grateful if someone knows the answer. Here's the stackoverflow logo with the glitch: StackOverflow logo glitched
Erik Živković (261 rep)
Apr 19, 2021, 03:51 PM • Last activity: May 29, 2025, 02:08 PM
1 votes
1 answers
280 views
In presentation mode, Keynote renders vector graphics badly (imported as PDF)
I want to have my logo as vector graphic in Keynote. Although Keynote offers nice basic functionality to create vector graphics, it doesn't seem to import SVG or any other vector file format. I read that at least it allows im import PDF files that have vectors in them. So I tried - and it works grea...
I want to have my logo as vector graphic in Keynote. Although Keynote offers nice basic functionality to create vector graphics, it doesn't seem to import SVG or any other vector file format. I read that at least it allows im import PDF files that have vectors in them. So I tried - and it works great, at least in edit mode: logo with very smooth edges But in presentation mode, it looks really awful: logo with ugly edges Is there something I can do? Or should I simply import the logo as a rasterized image?
Joshua Muheim (311 rep)
Apr 3, 2023, 10:56 AM • Last activity: May 28, 2025, 01:05 AM
0 votes
1 answers
72 views
Trouble creating line graph on numbers with multiple variables
I have little to no knowledge when it comes to Numbers/other data programmes. I’m working with a client and I want to create a line graph to show how these variables affect each other (eg. Does food consumption/exercise affect sleep) but i’m having no luck. Is it even possible or would I need to onl...
I have little to no knowledge when it comes to Numbers/other data programmes. I’m working with a client and I want to create a line graph to show how these variables affect each other (eg. Does food consumption/exercise affect sleep) but i’m having no luck. Is it even possible or would I need to only select two variables (including/excluding the date?) As you can see, despite selecting the table I want to use, the line graph produced seems to be completely unrelated? I’ve also tried creating a line graph with just two variables (see below) but the graph still doesn’t seem to make sense. I don’t want anything fancy, just an easy way to view how different variables affect each other 😅 Any help would be greatly appreciated! enter image description here enter image description here
Isobel Rose (1 rep)
Aug 15, 2023, 01:45 PM • Last activity: May 6, 2025, 09:05 PM
6 votes
1 answers
2159 views
How to use ImageMagick to bulk crop empty space on png files?
I just installed ImageMagick (new to Terminal) and can't figure out how to bulk crop a folder of pngs to remove all transparent space around the png (i.e. a square logo on a rectangle png with transparent area that can be cropped) I am trying to take all the pngs and output them into a different fol...
I just installed ImageMagick (new to Terminal) and can't figure out how to bulk crop a folder of pngs to remove all transparent space around the png (i.e. a square logo on a rectangle png with transparent area that can be cropped) I am trying to take all the pngs and output them into a different folder called out. What is the command?
Lukadadiani (561 rep)
Feb 9, 2017, 11:55 AM • Last activity: Apr 25, 2025, 06:21 AM
17 votes
2 answers
11552 views
Viewer for HEIF/HEIC images in El Capitan or Sierra
Is there any "native way" to view the new **HEIF/HEIC format** (or the viewer-application) in El Capitan or Sierra without upgrade of MacOS itself? It is not yet possible to upgrade yet to HighSierra for me, but I'd like to natively view images from iPhone 8 and up generation, avoiding conversions t...
Is there any "native way" to view the new **HEIF/HEIC format** (or the viewer-application) in El Capitan or Sierra without upgrade of MacOS itself? It is not yet possible to upgrade yet to HighSierra for me, but I'd like to natively view images from iPhone 8 and up generation, avoiding conversions to JPG. There been questions asked about convertors of .heic to .jpg, but I don't think it's reasonable to convert images (via the means of online convertors, specialized apps, Dropbox, etc.). Soon or later .heic support will become normal, and all the online services and applications will finish the transition, so obviously there will be no need to convert to JPG. **The question:** Is there any way to install some kind of plugin or extension to MacOS to support HEIF/HEIC within the Preview App, or it may be there are good applications alike XnView or analogues, which support it out of the box?
Farside (1633 rep)
Nov 1, 2017, 02:02 PM • Last activity: Apr 11, 2025, 10:03 AM
1 votes
1 answers
1063 views
Can not add background image, error message does not make sense
I want to add a background image to Teams, and get the error message "Couldn't add background: Invalid image size". The image is a JPEG and has size 2048x1512 and hence inside the limits given by Teams (2048x2048). The file size is less than 2MB. I'm running MacOS 12.7.3 with Teams Version 25007.204...
I want to add a background image to Teams, and get the error message "Couldn't add background: Invalid image size". The image is a JPEG and has size 2048x1512 and hence inside the limits given by Teams (2048x2048). The file size is less than 2MB. I'm running MacOS 12.7.3 with Teams Version 25007.204.3374.1976, which is the most recent Teams version running on this platform.
user1934428 (1458 rep)
Mar 21, 2025, 01:09 PM • Last activity: Mar 24, 2025, 03:51 PM
1 votes
0 answers
48 views
Scanning images with default macOS Scanner app always produces horrible jpeg artifacts, even with PNG?
When scanning images using the default macOS Scanner app (from Printers & Scanners) I noticed that when I do a 600 dpi scan and choose a lossless image format like PNG or BMP, the resulting image still produces horrible JPEG artifacts. The same happens with TIFF, HEIC, JPEG2000 and obviously also wi...
When scanning images using the default macOS Scanner app (from Printers & Scanners) I noticed that when I do a 600 dpi scan and choose a lossless image format like PNG or BMP, the resulting image still produces horrible JPEG artifacts. The same happens with TIFF, HEIC, JPEG2000 and obviously also with regular JPEG itself. I suspect some internal conversion or compression is taking place even before saving the image. Is there a way to circumvent that, or improve (i.e. lower) the compression rate?
RocketNuts (1529 rep)
Mar 18, 2025, 08:11 AM • Last activity: Mar 19, 2025, 01:15 PM
0 votes
1 answers
49 views
Obliterating any trace of icon, but it still appears in Python-made notifications
I am using [Jorrick's MacOS notifications generator][1] to make custom popup notifications. Whenever one appears, it uses the Python Launcher rocketship icon, like this: [![screenshot of notification][2]][2] I want to replace the rocketship image with the System Settings gear icon. So, I followed [A...
I am using Jorrick's MacOS notifications generator to make custom popup notifications. Whenever one appears, it uses the Python Launcher rocketship icon, like this: screenshot of notification I want to replace the rocketship image with the System Settings gear icon. So, I followed Apple Insider's tutorial on how to do so, and succeeded. This method only works with images, not .icns files - maybe there's a lead there. I also deleted PythonLauncher.icns, the picture of the rocketship, made a .icns of the gear, and put it in the same directory with the same name, so hopefully the program would use that as the icon. Now, PythonLauncher.app uses the gear icon in several places, but annoyingly, still not the notification icon! screenshot 1. The Python I'm executing to make the notification. I run it with python3 notifgen.py from Terminal. 2. The gear.png icon is used in the Get Info window 3. The gear.png icon is used in Finder 4. The gear.png icon is used in the Dock 5. The .icns file I made to replace the rocketship. Changing this file does not change the previous three icons. 6. The notification, still using the rocketship icon, even though that icon does not exist anywhere on my system. I deleted all traces of it. To be sure I deleted all copies of the old rocketship icon, I ran sudo find / -iname '*PythonLauncher*' 2>/dev/null | tee ~/Documents/python/pythonlaunchersearch.txt. The ouput of that command is below - I added newlines and explanatory comments, and opened each file in Finder to check what it was.
#a directory which contains one directory, which is empty
/System/Volumes/Data/private/var/folders/68/kk888d5s1g99nsjkfvml43rm0000gp/C/org.python.PythonLauncher

#a text file
/System/Volumes/Data/Users/cn13431/Library/Application Support/com.apple.sharedfilelist/com.apple.LSSharedFileList.ApplicationRecentDocuments/org.python.pythonlauncher.sfl3

#the results of my find command, tee'd into a file
/System/Volumes/Data/Users/cn13431/Library/CloudStorage/OneDrive-[company name redacted]/Documents/python/pythonlaunchersearch.txt

#OneDrive junk
/System/Volumes/Data/Users/cn13431/Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.OneDriveStandaloneSuite/OneDrive - [company name redacted].noindex/OneDrive - [company name redacted]/Documents/python/pythonlaunchersearch.txt

#a picture of the system settings gear icon that I renamed to PythonLauncher.icns to match the old image (the rocket)
/System/Volumes/Data/Applications/Python 3.13/Python Launcher.app/Contents/Resources/PythonLauncher.icns

#a directory which contains one directory, which is empty
/private/var/folders/68/kk888d5s1g99nsjkfvml43rm0000gp/C/org.python.PythonLauncher

#a text document
/Users/cn13431/Library/Application Support/com.apple.sharedfilelist/com.apple.LSSharedFileList.ApplicationRecentDocuments/org.python.pythonlauncher.sfl3

#OneDrive junk
/Users/cn13431/Library/CloudStorage/OneDrive-[company name redacted]/Documents/python/pythonlaunchersearch.txt

#OneDrive junk
/Users/cn13431/Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.OneDriveStandaloneSuite/OneDrive - [company name redacted].noindex/OneDrive - [company name redacted], Inc/Documents/python/pythonlaunchersearch.txt

#the same system settings gear image as before - it shows up twice in search results.
/Applications/Python 3.13/Python Launcher.app/Contents/Resources/PythonLauncher.icns
I could never be a detective, because I can't find where this rocketship icon is hiding. **How is Python still accessing the rocketship icon, even when it no longer exists? And how can I change the icon to be the System Settings gear instead?** Sharing an alternative to Jorrick's package that does allow to change the icon would also be a great answer. Postnote: The commented icon variable in the python program isn't helpful - that puts a small icon in the bottom right, like this: notification 2
SuperDialga (11 rep)
Feb 12, 2025, 05:37 PM • Last activity: Mar 15, 2025, 11:02 PM
0 votes
0 answers
16 views
Is there some way to toggle visibility of lines in a line graph in Apple Numbers?
In Apple Numbers, is it possible to temporarily hide a line in a line graph? What doesn't work as intended: - Hiding the row or column in the corresponding data table changes the line colors and styles (e.g. dashed) of the remaining lines, since they effectively move up in the table. - Removing the...
In Apple Numbers, is it possible to temporarily hide a line in a line graph? What doesn't work as intended: - Hiding the row or column in the corresponding data table changes the line colors and styles (e.g. dashed) of the remaining lines, since they effectively move up in the table. - Removing the row or column from the graph does not allow me to easily re-include that row or column, because custom line colors and styles are lost and default colors and styles are assigned to the "new" data.
user614688
Feb 18, 2025, 12:35 PM
7 votes
4 answers
68020 views
Changing the target DPI when saving slides as images in PowerPoint 2011
I want to increase the target resolution when exporting slides as images in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac. In other forums it says to go to Preferences -> Save, and from there you can change the dpi. Here's a fuzzy screen shot of what it should look like: ![here's a fuzzy screen shot of what it should loo...
I want to increase the target resolution when exporting slides as images in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac. In other forums it says to go to Preferences -> Save, and from there you can change the dpi. Here's a fuzzy screen shot of what it should look like: here's a fuzzy screen shot of what it should look like: Here's what I see instead: My Microsoft PPT preferences What are my options to increase the resolution/dpi?
malificent (71 rep)
Mar 14, 2015, 10:36 PM • Last activity: Jan 29, 2025, 01:26 PM
19 votes
4 answers
19516 views
Scaling text in Keynote
I have a complex drawing in Keynote, which I need to resize. I can do this by making the drawing into a group, but unfortunately it contains many text labels, which do not resize when I change the size of the group. I can change the font size, but it's quite hard to get the new font size to look the...
I have a complex drawing in Keynote, which I need to resize. I can do this by making the drawing into a group, but unfortunately it contains many text labels, which do not resize when I change the size of the group. I can change the font size, but it's quite hard to get the new font size to look the same as the old one. What usually happens is that the new text is slightly larger than the text boxes, so I end up having to manually resize each one in order to make it readable again. Usually I get around this by taking a screenshot and inserting it into the presentation as an image. However, in this case I need the image to have a transparent background. I tried using Keynote's Instant Alpha feature, but it left white in the interiors of letters like "O" and "a", and manually removing that is just as much work as manually resizing all the text boxes. So is there some kind of method or workaround for resizing the text of a keynote drawing along with the other elements, while keeping the background transparent?
N. Virgo (2084 rep)
Aug 29, 2013, 03:28 AM • Last activity: Jan 27, 2025, 01:34 PM
0 votes
0 answers
96 views
Copy and Paste text and image together from Notes into another app like Notion image broken
As the title suggests, when I copy and paste a piece of text together with an image from Notes into another application, the image turns into a broken placeholder. I have tried this with several apps, both from Notes into the other app, such as Notion, and from other apps into Mac notes. Recently, I...
As the title suggests, when I copy and paste a piece of text together with an image from Notes into another application, the image turns into a broken placeholder. I have tried this with several apps, both from Notes into the other app, such as Notion, and from other apps into Mac notes. Recently, I have tried with Notion and with the web interface for Zendesk, which I use for work. The text renders fine, but the image is broken. If I copy only the image, then it works fine. I am curious if there is a way to make it so both text and image can be copied together. I am using Alfred's copy history, and using Dropbox Capture for screenshots. I'm not sure if the issue would lie with these tools instead of Mac. I can provide additional information as necessary. enter image description here enter image description here
Jimmy Long (101 rep)
Jan 20, 2025, 08:02 AM
0 votes
1 answers
54 views
Why/How does Image Capture make TIFF scans 85% smaller when rotation is applied?
When I use Image Capture to scan a 4x6 print photo on my flatbed scanner at 600 dpi, with no rotation applied to the bounding box, the resulting TIFF file is generally around 11 MB in size, and the same scan saved as JPEG is about 1.2 MB in size. However, I've discovered that if I use any nonzero am...
When I use Image Capture to scan a 4x6 print photo on my flatbed scanner at 600 dpi, with no rotation applied to the bounding box, the resulting TIFF file is generally around 11 MB in size, and the same scan saved as JPEG is about 1.2 MB in size. However, I've discovered that if I use any nonzero amount of rotation on the bounding box, the resulting TIFF is about 1.8 MB in size, while the same scan saved as a JPEG is (again) 1.2 MB in size. In other words, I'm consistently finding that applying rotation shrinks the file size of the resulting TIFF by a whopping 85% — nearly as big a difference as saving in JPEG. Other than the tilt, however slight, the two TIFFs are visually indistinguishable, and both have exactly the same dimensions in pixels. If I open each TIFF in GraphicConverter 12 and re-save each as a TIFF with ZIP compression, both of the resulting files are about the same size as the original zero-rotation TIFF (i.e., the shrinkage of the rotated-capture TIFF goes away). Here's a small screenshot to illustrate the results of my test: Image-scan test results, zero vs. nonzero rotation Again, I have found this result to be consistent across dozens of scans. What on earth is going on here, to make the very-slightly-rotated-capture TIFF so dramatically smaller than the orthogonal-capture TIFF?
jdmc (392 rep)
Jan 15, 2025, 05:08 PM • Last activity: Jan 17, 2025, 12:12 AM
0 votes
1 answers
94 views
How can I figure out why my PDF file displays wrong colors & contrast in Preview?
Shows up poorly in Preview (left, and in built-in OS X viewer; Mac OS X 15.1) versus Adobe Acrobat and Chrome (right). I can't seem to find any document or app setting that would cause this. It seems to have the wrong color scheme and too much contrast. Any idea how I can figure out exactly what's h...
Shows up poorly in Preview (left, and in built-in OS X viewer; Mac OS X 15.1) versus Adobe Acrobat and Chrome (right). I can't seem to find any document or app setting that would cause this. It seems to have the wrong color scheme and too much contrast. Any idea how I can figure out exactly what's happening and why?  broken pdf
rbp (101 rep)
Jan 14, 2025, 03:55 PM • Last activity: Jan 14, 2025, 09:19 PM
8 votes
2 answers
14277 views
Install nvidia-smi on OSX
I tried installing nvidia-smi with home-brew, but it is not working out, this is my output -bash: nvidia-smi: command not found I have CUDA 7.5 installed and this is the output of my `nvcc -V` command Mine is a 15" Macbook Pro Retina, with Nvidia 750M GPU > nvcc: NVIDIA (R) Cuda compiler driver Copy...
I tried installing nvidia-smi with home-brew, but it is not working out, this is my output -bash: nvidia-smi: command not found I have CUDA 7.5 installed and this is the output of my nvcc -V command Mine is a 15" Macbook Pro Retina, with Nvidia 750M GPU > nvcc: NVIDIA (R) Cuda compiler driver Copyright (c) 2005-2015 NVIDIA Corporation Built on Thu_Sep_24_00:26:39_CDT_2015 Cuda compilation tools, release 7.5, V7.5.19 Output of kextstat command kextstat | grep -i cuda 140 0 0xffffff7f82675000 0x2000 0x2000 com.nvidia.CUDA (1.1.0) 5AFE550D-6361-3897-912D-897C13FF6983 OS version 10.11.4
Sentient07 (193 rep)
May 25, 2016, 10:35 AM • Last activity: Jan 14, 2025, 02:33 AM
11 votes
6 answers
9757 views
How do I extract an image out of a PDF using Preview for Mac?
I have a PDF that is from a scanner that is only an image (no text). Is there any way to extract the image out of the PDF in Mac Preview? Or is that the same thing as converting the PDF to an image?
I have a PDF that is from a scanner that is only an image (no text). Is there any way to extract the image out of the PDF in Mac Preview? Or is that the same thing as converting the PDF to an image?
Wimateeka (432 rep)
Jul 19, 2022, 01:58 PM • Last activity: Dec 14, 2024, 10:54 AM
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