Deleting a note in preview

Question

Level 1

4 points

Deleting a note in preview

I added a note to the page in preview (looks like a yellow sticky note) and it added in the middle of the PDF. I cannot move the note at all and when you scroll it follows you so it is becoming extremely annoying since it is covering text. I have looked at the other forums posted and tried all the methods. I have tried simply deleting the note (making sure to not be in text mode), I have tried right-clicking on the note and that doesn't give a delete option, I have tired the command + i function to see my annotations but the notes are not in the annotation list so I cannot delete the note from there, I have tried view > highlights and notes and the note is not in the list there either, only my highlights show up. So what can I do? how can I delete this note that is blocking basically the whole PDF and I cant move it. I click off of it (meaning the blinking cursor for typing turns off) and hover over to find the hand cursor so that I can click on it or at least move it out of the way but it never shows up.

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 15.1

Posted on Jan 28, 2025 2:20 PM

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Answer 1

Meg The Dog

Level 6

13,796 points

Jan 28, 2025 3:33 PM in response to ysabella3

The ability to delete notes works as expected on my system regardless if the pdf has been saved with the note or not.

ysabella3 wrote:

. . . I have tired the command + i function to see my annotations but the notes are not in the annotation list so I cannot delete the note from there . . .

Is there a scroll bar on the side of the Annotations list? You may need to scroll the list to see the notes - if, for example, the pdf is full of hyperlinks.

MtD

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Answer 2

dialabrain

Level 10

135,365 points

Jan 28, 2025 2:36 PM in response to ysabella3

Once saved with a note, you can no longer remove it. If you have a Time Machine backup of the file before you added the note, you can restore that.

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Answer 3

Feb 25, 2025 7:02 AM in response to momalle3

Removing works (almost) fine from the "Annotations" in the Info window - see image posted by dialabrain above. Select the note in the Annotations window and press delete, and it is deleted.

The (almost) is because, while the note IS removed, the display of the pdf may not be suitably updated; but close the pdf and reopen, and you will see that the note did disappear.

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Answer 4

dialabrain

Level 10

135,365 points

Jan 28, 2025 3:53 PM in response to Meg The Dog

Meg The Dog wrote:

The ability to delete notes works as expected on my system regardless if the pdf has been saved with the note or not.

Thanks for pointing that out. I got confused because when I deleted a note from the Inspector window, the note didn't disappear from the document until it was saved and re-opened. :)

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Answer 5

ysabella3 Author

Level 1

4 points

Jan 28, 2025 6:58 PM in response to Meg The Dog

I scrolled down in the annotations list and there is only "text box" or "highlight" or "line" because I drew an arrow. There's no other option, no "note" line in the annotations list. Do you have any other ideas?

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