(Mac OS X) How can I adjust the default popup size of Quick Look in Finder?

If I have an item selected in Finder, I can do a Quick Look by pressing space. Is there a way to control the default size of the Quick Look popup?

Most of the time the default size is way to small for reading the content of a pdf or doc. I need a way to read the content and also be able to move to different documents (with the arrow keys). You can change the popup size but it would be forgotten the next time you do Quick Look (although Mac OS sort of remembers the location if you had moved it).

command-option-Y gives you the fullscreen version of it but I don't want it because in fullscreen mode the arrow key scrolls up and down the document instead of selecting different documents.

Thanks!

Solution 1:

From Ars Technica Forum, courtesy of username DarylF2:

link to Ars Technica Forum

I figured it out, and is was actually pretty simple.

Show the package contents for "/Library/QuickLook/iWork.qlgenerator/" and edit "/Library/QuickLook/iWork.qlgenerator/Contents/Info.plist".

Change the "QLPreviewHeight" parameter value from "600" to your new value (I used "1000") and change the "QLPreviewWidth" parameter value from "800" to your new value (I used"1333").

That's it.

I didn't need to reboot or even log out and log back in for this to take effect, but I did need to open a few Pages document Quick Look previews before it seem to "take".

As always, back up the original file first and realize you are editing a file Apple didn't intend for the end user to edit.

I just tested it and it works for iWork documents only. PDF and other types of previews aren't affected. I'll try to see if there is more to it than that.

Solution 2:

Not exactly an answer to your question about default size, but I had a similar problem and therefore found this discussion here.

I often found myself dragging, resizing and rearranging windows by hand with the mouse and I found this very disturbing for my workflow where I try to avoid the mouse if I can and do most things with keyboard commands (Quicksilver, etc.). So I finally found **Optimal Layout http://most-advantageous.com/optimal-layout/ which provides many keyboard commands for moving and resizing windows (and even sending them to the second display) and it also lets you resize a quick look window to full/half/quarter screen size with 1 keystroke.

Its not changing the default size of QuickLook previews, but at least it lets you change their size quickly if they`re not big enough.