"Preview" won't open certain PDF files

Question

Level 1

41 points

"Preview" won't open certain PDF files

I was trying to help my son with his Eagle Scout project workbook and discovered an odd problem. The online workbook (Eagle Scout Service Project Workbook) provides a fillable PDF. When I click the link in Safari or Chrome, the file displays properly in the web browser. When I download the file, we can open it in Adobe Reader (10.1.9 or 11.0.6) and can enter data in the fillable fields. We thought all was well, until he tried to mail it to me - when we attached it to an email message (using Mail) we got the following:

We then tried to open the PDF in Preview, and got the same "Please Wait" error (note we did let it sit for a few hours once to see if anything really ever happened, but it never opened). His computer is an iMac 2011, running the latest Mavericks updates (10.9.2) and Reader 11.0.6. We then repeated the process on my 2011 iMac, 10.9.2 but an older Reader (10.1.9). Same result.

Has anyone else run into this issue with Preview and fillable PDFs? Could someone else try opening that file with Preview and see if it is something unique to that file - that would at least tell me if it's a problem with the file, or a problem with my Macs/Preview.

iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9.2)

Posted on Mar 25, 2014 6:50 AM

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Answer 1

Eric Root

Level 10

684,063 points

Mar 4, 2017 8:53 AM in response to mac_guy1975

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

Mar 3, 2017 2:58 PM in response to el_mancebo

I just got a PDF this afternoon with this exact problem. It wasn't a fillable PDF so that wasn't the issue. Is Apple going to do anything to correct this? It's obviously been going on for a while. FWIW, I'm running on Sierra so obviously it hasn't been fixed yet.

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Answer 3

Mar 25, 2014 2:57 PM in response to Russell Page

That pdf it's not compatible with the mac internal pdf viewer, so you need Acrobat reader to see this, safari can't show it either. You can see it because of the acrobat reader plug-in installed.

Extrange because pdf is designed to be very compatible format, upwards and backwards.

As an example, every letter is codified in pdf v1, so an old acrobat reader v1 could show the texts in every actual and future pdfs.

Every new thing added to the standard is added like layers upper the previous layers.

Lots of clever engineers think a lot to don't let this happen, but just one d*ckhead and this pdf ignores the rules of compatibility.

Even the last versions of Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator only show the not compatible message.

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