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Editing pdf with Preview

I've pasted a picture on a pdf on Preview. But even after saving it, if I open the document again the picture is still editable and removable. Is there a way to "fix it" and make it uneditable? Thanks

Posted on Jan 19, 2022 2:33 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jan 19, 2022 3:26 PM

Preview is not a PDF Editor, it is a reader only. Preview will not accept a pasted image onto a PDF, nor will it permit drag and drop from an image on the Desktop onto the PDF. No image that already exists in the PDF when opened in Preview can be changed or removed for the same reason as the first sentence. If you want to paste a picture onto a PDF, then pay for your choice of PDF editors in the Mac App Store (e.g. PDFpenPro, PDF Expert, etc.), or Code Industry's Master PDF Editor for Mac. Check the vendors' websites for free trials of these applications.


That image, if not protected by PDF permissions, may be selected, and copied to the clipboard, but then, can only be pasted into an application that can receive images from the clipboard such as Pages. If the PDF is opened in LibreOffice Draw, then the image(s) in the PDF can be selected and saved to the filesystem.


You can protect existing images in a PDF from selection, or change by opening the PDF in Preview, and choosing Print… > PDF > Save as PDF. On that Save PDF panel is a Security Options… button, which gives you an opportunity to password protect the PDF against users attempting to select text, images, or other content:




3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jan 19, 2022 3:26 PM in response to filocullen

Preview is not a PDF Editor, it is a reader only. Preview will not accept a pasted image onto a PDF, nor will it permit drag and drop from an image on the Desktop onto the PDF. No image that already exists in the PDF when opened in Preview can be changed or removed for the same reason as the first sentence. If you want to paste a picture onto a PDF, then pay for your choice of PDF editors in the Mac App Store (e.g. PDFpenPro, PDF Expert, etc.), or Code Industry's Master PDF Editor for Mac. Check the vendors' websites for free trials of these applications.


That image, if not protected by PDF permissions, may be selected, and copied to the clipboard, but then, can only be pasted into an application that can receive images from the clipboard such as Pages. If the PDF is opened in LibreOffice Draw, then the image(s) in the PDF can be selected and saved to the filesystem.


You can protect existing images in a PDF from selection, or change by opening the PDF in Preview, and choosing Print… > PDF > Save as PDF. On that Save PDF panel is a Security Options… button, which gives you an opportunity to password protect the PDF against users attempting to select text, images, or other content:




Jan 20, 2022 3:11 AM in response to VikingOSX

I'm using Monterey, well actually I could edit my pdf with Preview. This is the procedure I've used:


  1. Copy onto the Clipboard, the image that you want to paste on your PDF page.
  2. Go to Preview -> File -> New from Clipboard.
  3. This will basically create a new Preview document with your image in it. Now click anywhere on the image, press Cmd+A to select the entire image, press Cmd+C to copy and then (this is the crucial part!!) press Delete to delete the image.
  4. You will see a blank screen in Preview since you have deleted the image. Press Cmd+V and your image will reappear, but now, in a different format that can be copy-pasted across Preview documents.
  5. Finally, select this 'new format' image using Cmd+A, copy it using Cmd+C and navigate to your PDF document and paste using Cmd+V.

I basically could paste the picture (larger) than resized it as I wanted it.

Then using the password locking method got my picture uneditable, thanks


Editing pdf with Preview

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