removing all annotations in preview for sharing

Question

Level 1

8 points

removing all annotations in preview for sharing

hi there,

i have some pdfs i've annotated, but now i want to share them without those annotations. is there a way to remove or hide those annotations? it would just be too cumbersome if i'll have to remove them one by one, and i wouldn't want to have to make a duplicate every time i want to annotate a pdf later (one copy for annotating and the other as an original). so i'd really like to just annotate an original with the option to remove those annotations if i want to share the file later on.

thank you in advance!

Macbook, Mac OS X (10.6.6), Black 13" 2.16 Intel Core 2 Duo, 3 GB RAM, 500 GB HD,

Posted on Jan 25, 2011 4:39 PM

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Answer 1

Eric Root

Level 10

684,045 points

Jan 11, 2017 7:51 AM in response to thisguyneil

Send Apple feedback. They won't answer, but at least will know there is a problem or a suggestion for change. If enough people send feedback, it may get the problem/suggested change solved sooner.

Feedback

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Answer 2

Jan 10, 2017 1:05 PM in response to TeenTitan

Preview version 9.0 this does not work. Highlighted all but when I press delete it just makes the "boop" noise whenever you press a key that does nothing in a mac program. VERY FRUSTRATING since there is no simple "undo" button like every other program EVER has had since day one. I am not perfect, if I mark something up there is a high chance I might want a do over. Now I have to redownload the PDF since it saved automatically and ruined the original. Get this together, seriously.

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Answer 3

baltwo

Level 9

62,362 points

Jan 25, 2011 5:37 PM in response to Wenneth

Not that I'm aware of. I annotate and then use the Save As option, vice the Save option.

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Answer 4

TeenTitan

Level 4

2,640 points

Jan 25, 2011 6:31 PM in response to Wenneth

If your using preview. You can actually pull up a list of all Annotations. Using this list you can select all the Annotations and then delete all the annotations at the same time.

How to do this:
in preview, with your PDF open.
go to the menu bar
click on the "View" menu
from the "view menu" chose "SideBar."
from the submenu "SideBar" chose "Annotations"
On the right side of the PDF, Instead of a list of page you should now have a list of "Annotations." click on any of the Annotations listed.
go to the menu bar
click on the "Edit" menu
choose "Select All"
Press the "delete" key

At this point you could use Save As to re-save the file as the 'share friendly" version of the PDF.

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Answer 5

baltwo

Level 9

62,362 points

Jan 25, 2011 6:51 PM in response to TeenTitan

Thanks. Never had any reason to ferret that out, but it's nice to know. I prefer to have the two documents: the original and the annotated one.

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Answer 6

Wenneth Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 26, 2011 12:41 AM in response to TeenTitan

ah, there it is! it worked! thanks very much. problem solved.

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Answer 7

TeenTitan

Level 4

2,640 points

Jan 26, 2011 7:54 PM in response to Wenneth

Glad I could help. 😀

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Answer 8

meiti

Level 1

0 points

May 3, 2011 7:15 AM in response to TeenTitan

.

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Answer 9

May 24, 2012 8:17 AM in response to Wenneth

Under Lion (10.7) the process is different:

Tools > Show Inspector

In the Inspector window, click on the icon of a pencil (i.e. annotations inspector)

Select the annotations you want to delete, and hit the delete key on your keyboard.

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Answer 10

Apr 19, 2013 4:18 PM in response to Wenneth

(Re: TeenTitan's instructions)

In 10.8 Mountain Lion, this has changed slightly.

View -> Sidebar -> Annotations

has moved to:

View -> Highlights and Notes

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Answer 11

Oct 21, 2014 1:42 AM in response to Wenneth

In Yosemite (at least, perhaps even earlier) this has changed again. It's no longer possible to highlight multiple annotations in the sidebar, so deleting them all this way can be quite time consuming.

But there's an other way to achieve this. In the menu bar, choose Tools > Show Inspector (or just press command + I). Then, click the pen in the top right of the window you just opened. A list of all annotations appears. You can highlight them all by pressing command + A, and delete them pressing backspace.

You're welcome!

Edit: oops, Brian Miles already mentioned this solution years ago...

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Answer 12

Jan 23, 2015 4:06 PM in response to Brian Miles

Thanks Brian! This continues to work in Yosemite.

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Answer 13

P.Fontes

Level 1

14 points

Feb 5, 2015 7:41 AM in response to SamLoretto

You can't "select all" Highlights on side bar, but can select the top one and press the "delete" key. Keep pressing - it deletes all of them very quickly... 🙂

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Answer 14

WZZZ

Level 6

13,226 points

Mar 12, 2015 5:05 PM in response to P.Fontes

To anyone who is still looking at this thread, I have tried everything suggested within to delete annotations in some jpegs (tried saving them as pdf to try in that format), but nothing shows up in Annotations Inspector/Mountain Lion. Keep getting "no annotation selected." No idea how to select the annotations to get them to show, if they don't show up automatically with the Annotations Inspector.

Here is a small example of some annotations I would like to remove. Tried showing them in Sidebar, but everything there is greyed out. And nothing shows in highlights and notes either. I really must remove these. Any further ideas very much welcome.

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Answer 15

BDAqua

Level 10

239,333 points

Mar 12, 2015 6:45 PM in response to WZZZ

I'm really afraid that once saved as a JPG, they are no longer an annotation, but part of the graphic. 🙂

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