Preview PDF Annotations: Searchable and Visible in other programs

Question

Level 1

1 points

Preview PDF Annotations: Searchable and Visible in other programs

I've recently been using the preview app to annotate PDFs that I've scanned. I have two problems that I would like to see addressed and am wondering if anyone knows any workarounds in the meantime.

1) Annotations do not appear to be indexed and searchable with spotlight and/or search from within the Preview app
2) Annotations do not appear when the PDF is opened in Acrobat.

Any clues / Ideas?

MacBook Pro 15 Mid 2009, Mac OS X (10.6.1), 4 GB Ram, 500 GB 7200 RPM ST9500420ASG

Posted on Nov 7, 2009 6:49 PM

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Answer 1

K T

Level 7

23,877 points

Nov 7, 2009 7:16 PM in response to wessto

The version of Preview that is now included w/Snow Leopard is 'different' than previous releases.

If you have a particular process that is critical to your workflow, you may want to seek other tools, such as Acrobat...at least for the time being.

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Answer 2

wessto Author

Level 1

1 points

Nov 12, 2009 9:54 PM in response to wessto

By way of a workaround, I have found that if I print and use the pdf option "save as pdf..." my annotations will be visible in other programs and searchable. Hope this helps someone else.

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Answer 3

EricHuw

Level 1

8 points

Nov 30, 2009 11:26 PM in response to wessto

Thanks for the tip. I've just come across this issue in preview and have left some feedback for Apple. I use Spotlight extensively for finding notes and references and if it can't be relied upon it becomes a major problem.

Have you come across Skim, the open-source pdf reader? It doesn't have this issue and is an extremely polished and professional application.

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