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User profile for user: drgaryse
drgaryse Author
User level: Level 1
5 points

Preview saves PDFs as blanks in Big Sur OSx 11.2

Before "upgrading" to Big Sur, the Preview app was useful for encrypting PDFs with passwords and in general using Preview to add pages to PDFs, fix rotated PDFs that had been scanned, etc. Now Preview won't even save a PDF that I exported from MS Word. When I encrypted a perfectly readable PDF and exported it, the password worked, but the document opened as blank. When I re-open a PDF after saving it without adding encryption the document also opens as a blank. I did not in that case use the Export function. My first installation of Big Sur to 11.1 created a similar problem with printing. I would create a document in Word that had images and text. When printing to my Canon printer, it printed the images but there was no text. With OSx 11.2 the printer now works, and I haven't updated the printer driver. So, I wonder whether these issues are related in the new operating system. You would think Apple would test this stuff before releasing, right???


Anyway here are specifics of my setup:

13 inch MacBook Air early 2015

Microsoft Word for Mac ver 16.45

Canon LBP 6230dw printer via WIFI on my Apple network

Fujitsu ScanSnap iX500

Fujitsu ScanSnap Home scanning app version 2.0.20 (7) online update 3.1.21

OSx 11.2


Posted on Feb 6, 2021 11:36 AM

Question marked as Top-ranking reply
User profile for user: drgaryse
drgaryse Author
User level: Level 1
5 points

Posted on Feb 10, 2021 1:29 PM

I contacted Apple's phone support and received excellent help that seems to have resolved the issue. The rep told me to shut down the computer and start in Safe Mode.


Details of entering Safe mode: this was done by first pressing the Power switch, then releasing it and immediately holding down the left Shift key. When the screen asked for my password to open my computer, I released the Shift key and entered the password. A subsequent screen asked for the password again. It was not obviously in Safe mode, but when we went into the dropdown menu from the apple icon at the upper left of my screen, chose About This Mac and Software, the screen on the right indicated I was in safe mode.


I was asked to recreate the problem in Safe Mode, which I did. Safe Mode allowed me to save the PDF file I'd opened in Preview and reopen it. This time the text was there. It wasn't a blank. In Safe Mode I was still unable to Export a file as encrypted and reopen it and still show the text. She had me shut down my computer and restart in regular mode.


Now I tried to reproduce the problem and everything worked. However there was one thing I did differently. Preview's PDF Export allows more options than before. I unticked everything except for Encrypt. That might have been what fixed things or Safe Mode may have rewritten some errors or both.

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User profile for user: drgaryse
drgaryse Author
User level: Level 1
5 points

Feb 10, 2021 1:29 PM in response to drgaryse

I contacted Apple's phone support and received excellent help that seems to have resolved the issue. The rep told me to shut down the computer and start in Safe Mode.


Details of entering Safe mode: this was done by first pressing the Power switch, then releasing it and immediately holding down the left Shift key. When the screen asked for my password to open my computer, I released the Shift key and entered the password. A subsequent screen asked for the password again. It was not obviously in Safe mode, but when we went into the dropdown menu from the apple icon at the upper left of my screen, chose About This Mac and Software, the screen on the right indicated I was in safe mode.


I was asked to recreate the problem in Safe Mode, which I did. Safe Mode allowed me to save the PDF file I'd opened in Preview and reopen it. This time the text was there. It wasn't a blank. In Safe Mode I was still unable to Export a file as encrypted and reopen it and still show the text. She had me shut down my computer and restart in regular mode.


Now I tried to reproduce the problem and everything worked. However there was one thing I did differently. Preview's PDF Export allows more options than before. I unticked everything except for Encrypt. That might have been what fixed things or Safe Mode may have rewritten some errors or both.

User profile for user: Luis Sequeira1
Luis Sequeira1
User level: Level 9
77,942 points

Feb 10, 2021 3:01 PM in response to drgaryse

It is not working for you, but I can assure you it is working for most people.


There may be something particular to your setup that is causing a problem.


Preview continues to be able to create password protected pdfs, rotate pages, add and remove or reorder pages in pdf documents, all that.


You may want to run Etrecheck and post its report here, maybe we can spot something.


Also, try starting in Safe Mode and see if these things work.

And also, test in a new user account and see if it works there.

The results of these tests may also help figuring out what is wrong.

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Preview saves PDFs as blanks in Big Sur OSx 11.2

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