Pages copied text will not open in Preview clipboard

Paste where, exactly?

As dialabrain said, there is no such thing as a new Preview document.

If you have an image in the clipboard, you can do File->New from Clipboard, but otherwise there is no New anything.

You can paste text in a text box annotation, or on a note in an existing Preview document.

If you can explain what you intended to do in Preview with that text, perhaps we can give a more tailored advice.

Yes, it is greyed out as I explained above, and that is normal behavior.

It does not make sense when the clipboard has only text, because Preview does not open or create text files.

New from Clipboard only works if the clipboard content is an image.

FWIW, If you have an image or a PDF open, you can create a text box and paste into that. You cannot create a new document in Preview.

I think everything you need to know about what Preview will accept from the clipboard has been shared here and how it will accept it.

When you copy/paste text from Pages, and the following is the copying of three paragraphs from Pages v13.1, you don't get any images or PDF content. The Finder's Clipboard viewer simply reports Rich Text (RTF) content, and an advanced viewer reports more details…

Pasting Rich Text (RTF) clipboard content into Notes does not suddenly transform that clipboard content to image or PDF data, and the Preview New From Clipboard menu item remains unavailable.

One of the obscure facts about Pages v13.1 is it now accepts dropped SVG artwork, and if one selects and copies that SVG content to the clipboard, it will activate Preview's New from Clipboard menu item and Preview will convert that SVG data to a new PDF item. One cannot however, directly open SVG artwork in Preview as that is currently unsupported.

lorilani wrote:

I have same problem, BUT i loaded an image into the clipboard, and then tested to make sure it was really there, and an image, by pasting into Notes. No problem. It's definitely an image in the clipboard. But "new from clipboard" is still greyed out in Preview! I'm on Ventura 13.4.1.

Could you try this again, and before (or after) you paste into Notes, do this: switch to the Finder, and choose Edit->Show Clipboard.

I am interested to know what it says at the bottom - e.g., does it say "Clipboard Contents: PNG image" or something else entirely?

FWIW, I use File->New From Clipboard very often, and I cannot reproduce this problem - that's why I am asking.

I think that maybe the type of the contents of the clipboard in this case may be something other than an image, and that is (probably) why Preview is not working with it.

OK, here's a P.S. ... Apple's Preview does not seem to know that I have an image in my clipboard ... but Apple's Notes seems totally happy to let me paste the image from my clipboard into a Note. Then, when I double click on the image in Notes, it automatically opens in Preview! Voila. No rhyme or reason that i can ascertain, but it's a simple work-around, so I'm off to deal with the next issue!

I have same problem, BUT i loaded an image into the clipboard, and then tested it by pasting into notes. No problem. It's definitely an image in the clipboard. But "new from clipboard" is still greyed out in Preview! I'm on Ventura 13.4.1

I have same problem, BUT i loaded an image into the clipboard, and then tested to make sure it was really there, and an image, by pasting into Notes. No problem. It's definitely an image in the clipboard. But "new from clipboard" is still greyed out in Preview! I'm on Ventura 13.4.1.

OK, here's a P.S. ... Apple's Preview does not seem to know that I have an image in my clipboard ... but Apple's Notes seems totally happy to let me paste the image from my clipboard into a Note. Then, when I double click on the image in Notes, it automatically opens in Preview! Voila. No rhyme or reason that i can ascertain, but it's a simple work-around, so I'm off to deal with the next issue!

I tried to explain that as well. 😎