Issue with Highlights and Notes in Preview

Hello torchic91,

We see that you're having some trouble with preview. We'd be happy to get you pointed in the right direction for this!

Could you please confirm the exact macOS version you're running? You can find the version number using these steps: Find out which macOS your Mac is using

Does this same thing happen with all documents in preview or just certain documents?

Do you have access to another Mac? Does this happen on there as well?

Cheers!

Hello!

Based on what you're describing you'll want to get in contact with Apple Support directly to look in to this further.

You can reach out to them here: Get Support

Cheers!

Dear Bryan_K1,

I have the same issue. It is really frustrating because I use the Preview app daily for work and annotating PDFs has become a nightmare.

In addition to what was reported by torchic91, I noticed additional bugs which I try to describe below:

• in order to delete a Note or Highlight from the Sidebar, you actually need to press the Delete key on the one that comes before. This also means that there is no way to delete if you have a single Note left;
• you can however delete Highlights and related notes by right-clicking in-text and choosing 'Remove Highlight' or 'Remove Note'. The 'Remove' option is not available if you have a stand-alone Note;
• the jumping to the previous Note or Highlight also happens if you try to modify the Note;
• the ordering of Notes and Highlights is incorrect in two-columns documents (basically, it is based on the absolute positioning on the page rather than in the columns).

These issues are obviously more critical with multiple pages PDFs. In addition, I have noticed that bugs become worse if the app is used in full-screen mode.

To conclude, I have a MacBook Pro, 15-inch, 2017, 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 with macOS Big Sur 11.4.

Cheers

I have been experiencing this problem too! (MacBook Air 2020, M1 with macOS Big Sur 11.5.1)

It is incredibly frustrating considering I really like the appearance & clean feel of the Preview interface when reading PDFs, yet the bugs on highlighting & adding notes greatly hinder the reading experience.

@developers please fix this! Preview is a great app - it is fluid, intuitive, and integrates well with the UX of macOS - and could be made much better!

Image for reference (refer to beige coloured text box for a brief explanation)

Dear all, while waiting for an official bug fix, I am personally using this workaround, as follows:

Step 1: Highlight text, using default keyboard shortcut ^⌘H

Step 2: Go back to previous screen (go back in page history), using default keyboard shortcut ⌘[

• For step 2, you can also click on the left arrow “<“ in the toolbar (if you have included Page History buttons under the View > Customise Toolbar settings)

## Optional ##

As H and J keys are next to one another, I thought it was more convenient to make ^⌘J as the shortcut for step 2 above.

To do this, I head to the menu on the top of the Screen:

Preview > Services > Service Preferences > App Shortcuts > ‘add’ button > 

Application: Preview

Menu Title: Go->Back

Keyboard Shortcut: ^⌘J

This way, each time I want to highlight a phrase etc. in my PDF, I simply hold the ^ and ⌘ keys, while pressing H then J. And the page will stay in place!

Great laptop, but really frustrating bugs in this official built-in app :(

Preview, Version 11.0 (1018.6.2)