Multiple Documents in Single Window in Preview

Question

Level 1

0 points

Multiple Documents in Single Window in Preview

I mostly use Preview.app (on Lion 10.7.3) to read and annotate relatively large pdf documents (articles, reports, etc.). While working on a given project I tend to have many pdf files open at the same time. I personally would like to have all of the pdfs I use open in a single window, so I have Preview set to "Open all files in one window" (Preferences > General). This setup initially worked very well since it allows me view all of my open documents in the sidebar (similar to tabs in a browser window). The problem is that when I switch from one pdf to another, the position of the pdfs (i.e., the page I was on when I switched to another pdf) is not preserved. This seemingly defeats the purpose of having this functionality in Preview, so I have a few questions I'm hoping someone can help me with.

First, is this the intended behavior of this setting, or is this a bug? In either case, is anyone aware of a fix for this? I just want the documents I'm reading to preserve their positions when switching between them when opened in a single window.

Posted on Feb 27, 2012 5:13 PM

Reply

Answer 1

thefranko Author

Level 1

0 points

Apr 16, 2012 12:23 PM in response to thefranko

For those interested, I've figured out a solution to this problem. The trick is how you switch from one document to another. When using the mouse to change to another document (by simply clicking on it) the documents will not preserve their page positions. However, if you use option + page up/down (or option + function + arrow up/down for keyboards without page up/down keys) you can switch between documents while saving the page position of the documents. I hope this helps.

Reply

Answer 2

CfromNL

Level 1

8 points

May 10, 2012 9:09 AM in response to thefranko

TheFranko you are the BEST!!!!

How did you find out bout this?

I have been getting frustrated with this for a long time!

I too have to work through long reports and articles and having to navigate back to p.278 in report A after quickly checking something in report B is not fun.

I reckon this is simply a bug that Apple has overlooked, lets hope they fix it soon or give your the possibility to "remember position within document".

Thanks again!

Reply

Answer 3

buruki

Level 1

4 points

Jul 10, 2013 3:07 PM in response to thefranko

Really great!... Thank you very much for the tip!..

Reply

Answer 4

Docpappy

Level 1

8 points

Nov 5, 2014 8:24 AM in response to thefranko

Thanks, very helpful tip indeed. Lets just say Ive opened 5 pdfs in preview simultaneously and I wanted to add another pdf to the 5, how do I do this? I'm sure there must be a way.

Thanks

Edit: I've now found out how to do this:

Add files to an existing window

Choose View > Thumbnails.
Drag the files to the window’s sidebar.

Thanks

Reply

Answer 5

Oct 28, 2015 11:40 AM in response to Docpappy

thanks! this has been bugging me for a long long time

Reply