how to rotate annotations in Preview

[Doug Lassiter]

This came up as the terminal command, it rotates the image, not sure if one can select the annotation that way and turn just that.

Is it possible to rotate images in Preview in degrees other than 90?

I want to rotate an image in preview but I only need to move it a few degrees. Is this possible? Or can you only rotate 90 degrees?

apple.stackexchange.com

That's well known how to rotate jpeg files from the terminal window. But that's not what we're talking about here. It's rotating Preview annotations, which you CAN do with a trackpad.

 

[Doug Lassiter]

I just came across this where one can supposedly rotatean image in Preview by very fine steps by holding down the option button.
I tried it on Mojave - doesn't work. When I hold down the option button and rotate, the rotate option just changes direction.

However, those post a are from 2005, at the time it seems there was actually both a rotate right and rotate left button and with those one could rotate in fine steps. Looks like a featurethat has disappeared from Preview.
Here is the link: http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2005012115382953

Holding down the option button on a preview annotation just duplicates that annotation. That is, it DOES do something, but not what I want. Holding down the option button while you press the rotate button just rotates in 90 degree increments in the opposite direction.

 

[MacHalifaxguy]

If anyone's looking for a video tutorial about the trackpad way to rotate text, here's a video I made - Rotate Text In Mac Preview