Level 1

2 points

Yosemite: Preview Won't Manipulate or Merge PDFs

Using Yosemite 10.10 on 10-18-14 with a Macbook Pro Retina Early 2013, I can't manipulate PDFs using Preview 8.0. The PDF is not locked, and I have full read/write permission.

I can open a PDF. I can delete a page in a PDF. I can rotate a page in the PDF. However, I CAN'T move a page from one location to another within the same PDF. I CAN'T merge the contents of one PDF into another PDF.

When I try to move a page within a PDF a "hole" opens up between the pages (that slid apart to allow the page to be moved there) but the page is not moved to that location and the "hole" does not close up until the PDF is closed and reopened. When I drag the source PDF to the desired position inside the thumbnail on the left side of the recipient PDF, the thumbnail pages slide apart and the green + appears over the icon for the source PDF confirming that I want to add the PDF in that location. However when I release the mouse, the document springs back to its former location without being added. Unlike in an attempted page move, however, the thumbnails slide back together.

I have to manipulate PDFs all the time, and if anyone can tell me what I'm (suddenly) doing wrong, I would be most appreciative. I have Adobe Acrobat, so I can work around the problem, but Acrobat is slow and difficult to work with. Thanks in advance.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Yosemite (10.10)

Posted on Oct 18, 2014 9:55 AM

82 replies

VikingOSX

Level 10

123,482 points

Jan 25, 2015 11:23 AM in response to Litag8r

This Combine PDF's Service works.

Jan 26, 2015 9:10 AM in response to Litag8r

Litag8r,

If you would like an objective (and more scientific) approach, I believe it would be necessary for everyone to test with the same reference PDFs.

I have personally combined documents of "type 1" and "type 2" together in all possible combinations. Admittedly, I have not tried to combine documents of "type 3".

It is conceivable, however, that different scanners use different standards for PDF creation. This would cause "type 2" documents to differ from person to person.

Jan 26, 2015 9:13 AM in response to Litag8r

The fact is that Preview is buggy and needs some attention. How the PDF is created or from which program should be irrelevant. PDF's should be easily combined and manipulated just like in prior versions of Preview...the trick here is to keep the discussion going so that Apple knows that there is an issue...

benwiggy

Level 4

1,491 points

Jan 26, 2015 9:17 AM in response to Gregg Palmer

Gregg Palmer wrote:

the trick here is to keep the discussion going so that Apple knows that there is an issue...

Posting here does not bring the issue to Apple's attention. You need to use the Feedback pages.

G.Lenn

Level 1

41 points

Jan 26, 2015 11:54 AM in response to Litag8r

Same issue

Multiple reboots did not work
PDFpenpro did not work
No updates shown on App Store

Oddly enough what worked for me is a full shutdown of my MacBook. When it booted back up, there was a weird installation bar that showed up after I entered my password. It had no indication of what it was installing.

But, now everything works.

Jan 29, 2015 10:27 AM in response to Litag8r

Well this just stinks. I use Preview to combine PDFs regularly. I just did it extensively about two weeks ago. Now I can't combine two PDFs, one of which I created from Pages.

emorga09

Level 1

0 points

Jan 30, 2015 7:41 PM in response to Litag8r

I found that if the document is saved in PDF format the combine function in preview works. However if the document is saved in another format (e.g. JPEG, which still opens in preview) then the drag and combine function will not work. Hope this helps.

Feb 2, 2015 10:47 AM in response to Eric Root

I have had the same issues. I use the PDF merge feature constantly in my work, and this has reduced my productivity enormously. I have done extensive testing, and often I can merge one or two pages, then will be unable to merge the next one. It does not seem to be file-type specific, but seems to have more to do with how many times you have used the merge command while Preview is open. The Apple Genius reproduced the problem and verified that it is specific to the latest version of Yosemite. I encourage EVERYONE to go to the Apple Feedback site and complain as loudly as possible to get this higher in their queue of fixes. Thank you to everyone who takes the time to do so! This is important!

http://www.apple.com/feedback/

e rose

Level 1

5 points

Feb 12, 2015 2:56 PM in response to Litag8r

This was VERY frustrating, but the solution found at http://macosxautomation.com/automator/combinePDFs/index.html worked perfectly for me. NOTE: you don't have to create it all yourself using the very lengthy instructions. Just download the service and install it.

Worked like a charm!

The zip file they posted is at:

http://macosxautomation.com/automator/combinePDFs/CombinePDFService.zip

Feb 13, 2015 12:48 PM in response to Litag8r

Litag8r,

Thank you for doing such a thorough test. I've been having the same issue as everyone else, in my case trying to insert a one-page scanned PDF into a multi-page generated PDF. Printing the scanned PDF to a PDF didn't help. Here's what did (which may be similar to an earlier suggestion to highlight the various PDFs and open them at the same time):

• First (in Thumbnail View in both docs), I dragged the scanned PDF into the generated PDF. Of course, the scanned PDF just laid on top of the generated PDF in the sidebar; I couldn't move it to the generated PDF, because they were really two separate docs, just sitting in the same sidebar.

• I clicked on a page in the *generated* PDF, highlighting it.

• I highlighted all of the pages in the sidebar with Ctrl A.

• I opened the Print dialogue and selected Open PDF in Preview from the PDF dropdown, which I then saved. ("Save as PDF..." might have worked as well, saving a step.)

• I then closed all docs and opened the newly saved PDF, which contained all of the pages from both docs; at that point I was able to manipulate them in the usual way, moving the page from the scanned PDF — now the first page of the new doc — to a different location.

• I yelled, "Finally!"

Note that Print, Save as PDF didn't work for me when I did it just to the scanned doc, attempting to "flatten" it before attempting to insert it into the generated doc. It only worked when I had the two docs together in the same sidebar.

I hope this works for others. It's certainly a workaround, but it doesn't take long. If you find that you're having the merge problem, then you already have both docs open and you're almost halfway there.

tthiel1

Level 2

184 points

Feb 18, 2015 2:58 PM in response to Litag8r

Are you really this much of a *******?

tthiel1

Level 2

184 points

Feb 18, 2015 3:00 PM in response to VikingOSX

Strawman. Nobody said they expected Preview to be Acrobat. They are asking about previous functionality that appears to be gone although this discussion did yield a solution.

Litag8r Author

Level 1

2 points

Feb 19, 2015 8:38 AM in response to e rose

Thanks e rose for the link to the Automator service that I have been using to combine PDFs without a problem. VikingOSX correctly stated that the combine PDF service works. Since Yosemite, however, the only Automator script I use started working erratically (and sometimes not at all). This Automator problem has been reported on other threads, and one learned commenter says that something inside OSX appears to be broken causing these erratic results. Thus I was skeptical that Automator would work for me. However it does! Therefore I don't have to rush out to buy another program to combine PDFs today.

Here is a link to the zip file so you don't have to go looking up this thread to find it:

http://macosxautomation.com/automator/combinePDFs/CombinePDFService.zip

To use, just select each PDF you want to combine (must be inside the same folder) in the order you want to combine them. Then right-click on one, select service->combine PDF. It takes just a few seconds to combine some 200+ page documents. Haven't had a failure yet.

Thanks also for the clever workaround by Pseudotechie! I tried it with a scanned file and a generated file with annotations just now and it worked fine. Check out his post above for that tip as well if you are not comfortable with Automator. As Pseudotechie says, if you have preview open with the documents then you are half way to a solution.

Nevertheless, this not only does not excuse Preview from its dumb bug(s), but makes it even more perplexing. The OS comes with a service that will combine PDFs, and Automator can access that service. Therefore why can't Preview pull it off like it used to? I think we all just want Preview to return to its previous functionality. It is small, fast, and does 90% of what you need Adobe Acrobat for. I never knew how great it was until it was broken.

As an aside, it is really remarkable that (1) not everyone is having this problem, but those of us that do can reproduce it readily and (2) that we have a forum like this filled with geniuses who seem to be able to find a solution for every problem! Preview may not be fixed, and this problem not "solved" but we have at least 2 solutions that you can implement in minutes that will get you back on the road! Thanks!!!!

ksnair

Level 1

0 points

Feb 24, 2015 7:52 AM in response to smackit

Here is another way to do this.

Step 1: Open only the first PDF file in Preview.

Step 2: Open a Finder window and keep it side by side with the Preview window

Step 3: View > Thumbnails is on

Step 4: Drag the second PDF file from the "Finder" window to the Thumbnail section of the Preview app

Step 5. Export to PDF

This worked for me. Also, I merged a JPEG file into this document the same way and it seemed to work. Hope this helps. Apple definitely didn't document this anywhere of course, I tried it on a whim.

Feb 24, 2015 2:43 PM in response to Litag8r

I had trouble merging PDFs generated from a scanner on a new iMac running 10.10.2. in Preview 8.0. I could add 3 files to the original in Thumbnail view just fine, but I couldn't save a combined file with all 4 PDFs merged into 1.

I got around that by first Edit/Insert/Blank Page which seemed to turn the original single-page PDF into a "binder." From there I could add the 3 I wanted, delete the blank page, and save as a merged file "binder."

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Yosemite: Preview Won't Manipulate or Merge PDFs