You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
Preview refuses to open files in the same window. The appropriate box is ticked, but I keep getting new windows. When I drag a file to the thumbnail sidebar -this is how I have always done it- it will not appear there. How can I force Preview to open ONE window with multiple files?
MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 12.7
Yes, in El Capitan I could open both PDFs and jpegs in one Preview window by dropping the filles into the sidebar. That way I could keep all of the info of one project in sight and click on the thumbnails as needed. Very clean and simple. It is not that simple with Monterey as the tabs give one name for a whole page of jpegs, which makes it difficult to oversee and use. Progress it ain't [for me].
But thanks for your help, at least now the dock is not overrun with Preview icons :)
Because Preview was tweaked by Apple to open files in separate windows. Nothing you can do about that change. You can use the Windows menu : Merge all windows to generate tabs in one Preview window for all of those open file windows.
Rita Van_Opzeeland wrote:
When I drag a file to the thumbnail sidebar -this is how I have always done it- it will not appear there.
Really? I didn't know you could ever do that. I see why that's not possible anymore. When I tried it, all I managed to do was modify a PDF that I actually didn't want to change. It's a good idea that dragging to the sidebar only has one function, adding a page.
How can I force Preview to open ONE window with multiple files?
You can't ever force it. The best you can do is select multiple files in the Finder and open them all at once. If all of the files are relatively small and relatively similar, then they will all open in the same window. However, this is never guaranteed. There is some kind of fuzzy logic behind it. If one file is significantly different or significantly larger or something, then it will invariably get opened in a new window.
Yes, in the old days it was difficult to merge files, they just appeared as separate files in the sidebar. Pretty much how it now works with the tabs.
I have been editing [as in getting the layout right with the right pictures with the right pages] books and scripts with PDF pages and jpegs, never been a problem. Now that's not an option anymore.
Rita Van_Opzeeland wrote:
Yes, in the old days it was difficult to merge files, they just appeared as separate files in the sidebar. Pretty much how it now works with the tabs.
I have been editing [as in getting the layout right with the right pictures with the right pages] books and scripts with PDF pages and jpegs, never been a problem. Now that's not an option anymore.
Now I'm confused. You are talking about two distinctly different things.
I understood your original post to be about a lost capability to drag files to the sidebar to open them in the same window. I didn't know there was ever such a feature.
There was, and still is, the capability to drag files to the sidebar to add them to an existing document. So with this feature, the sidebar could show either multiple files or multiple pages of a single file.
Now, I'm not sure which feature you are really talking about.
I'm unclear what the issue is. I selected 4 jpegs and opened them in Preview. This is what I get in Monterey 12.7…
Thank you VikingOSX.
I have now done that. Definitely a far less elegant solution than just adding the files yourself to one window, but it'll have to do I guess.
You are welcome. Apple's definition of progress… 🤨
I see the issue is only with PDFs.
You are right, and it does that in Sonoma 14.0, my default Desktop. I was thinking PDF when I answered the OP and PDF do open in their own separate windows.
I'm not sure there is a better way to handle multiple PDFs. Especially if some/all have multiple pages.
You're welcome.
Preview opening multiple files in multiple windows on Monterey
