Can Not Open Yellow Notes in Preview!

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Level 1

4 points

Can Not Open Yellow Notes in Preview!

I have spent hours editing (marking up and/or annotating) a PDF for a friend. I saved my edits through the Print PDF option (File -- Print -- Save as PDF). When I opened the saved/edited PDF in Preview, to make sure my edits were there, I could see the small yellow square icons, but could NOT open them.

Solutions I've tried:

--Displaying the notes on the left side bar (View -- Highlights and Notes), nothing appeared.

--Double clicking the yellow icons, didn't work

--Right clicking the yellow icons, didn't work

I can still see the other edits I made to the PDF (highlights, strikeouts, underline, etc.), I just can not open/view the notes. I currently have version 10.15.6 on my MAC.

Any suggestions would be really appreciated. Thank you!

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Nov 8, 2020 5:07 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

empt4 Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 22, 2020 2:05 PM in response to empt4

Update:

After talking with Apple support, I got a lesson on PDFs. I learned that PDFs are essentially "pictures," which explained why I was able to see certain changes I made (strikeouts, underlines, highlights), but was unable to open and see the comments I had made in the yellow sticky notes. It's similar to if you take a screen shot of Google's homepage; when you reopen the screen shot, you can't type anything into the search engine box because its a "picture". PDFs are the same way.

Originally, I was saving the PDF by going to File -- Print -- Save as PDF.

To solve my problem, I had to either:

1) "Save" the changes. Meaning I would be replacing the original file with the changes I made. In this case, I wanted to keep the original file as it was. This option didn't allow me to create 2 different files (the original file and a file with the changes I made).

2) "Export" the file (NOT "Export as PDF"). This allowed me to keep the original file in tack and also create a new file with the yellow sticky note feature, which I was able to open and read the comments.

I hope this helpful for others too!

Thanks to everyone who has responded!

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Answer 2

Nov 15, 2020 7:02 AM in response to empt4

Using; File > Print > Save as PDF, "bakes in" the markups and they can't be edited.

Instead, either use File > Save to save the updates to the existing file

or File >Duplicate to save the updates to a new file

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Answer 3

Nov 15, 2020 6:18 AM in response to empt4

Hi empt4,

Thanks for coming to Apple Support Communities for help today with a PDF. It sounds like you are unable to see the notes you have made when annotating.

For reference, here is the way to Annotate a PDF in Preview on Mac.

What do you have selected in the Markup Toolbar when you are trying to see the notes? Does anything change if you select something else?

Have you tried exporting the PDF and opening it elsewhere? You could try opening it in a new user account: Set up users, guests, and groups on Mac.

Let us know how it goes.

Have a great day!

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Can Not Open Yellow Notes in Preview!

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