Q: Yosemite crippled PDF text annotation with Preview.

Thank you!   I would have never figured this out.    Adding text and an arrow is even easier now - you can do it in one action now.   But in no way was it obvious.   Thanks ReedEz.

This worked for me:

- Click the Toolbox icon & then click the T icon

- Type away

- Click on your text box to select it

- Use SHIFT (key) + LEFT, RIGHT, UP, DOWN arrow keys to move your text box anywhere

- Use the LEFT, RIGHT, UP, DOWN  arrow  keys to move your text box by a few pixels

This works with the Shapes too.

I think I found a solution to put Mavericks preview back without the "invisible text" issue.

I have yosemite 10.3

So first you need to replace PDFkit (thanks to Richard Oberndorf):

Replace PDFkit framework with the one from Mavericks. Here's how:

     a) BACK UP your system!!!!

     b) Go to /System/Library/Frameworks/Quartz.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks

     c) Copy PDFKit.framework to somewhere else on your computer for safe keeping in case you need to replace it. This is version 3.1 in Yosemite.

     d) In the same folder on a Mavericks system, make a copy of the PDFKit.framework file. This should be version 2.9.2 in Mavericks.

     e) Replace the file in folder (b) with the Mavericks version (d)

     f) Restart the computer

Then you add in Programs the Preview.app from Mavericks (see the backup).

And restart your mac.

It worked for me.

Could you share your PDFkit of Mavericks? I do not have any Mavericks back up.

I share your frustration with the new annotation functionality of Preview 8.0 in Yosemite. I think I found a workaround. The problem is in the preference "Smoothing Text and Line Art." It is checked by default. Uncheck it and horizontal lines should remain as such after closing.

Apparently you also need to Save the changes before closing.

Sorry. I guess my suggested workaround is not particularly stable.  I am still having trouble with the vertical line conversion in Preview. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. However, if you open the saved Preview-annotated pdf file in Adobe Acrobat, the horizontal underlining remains in its proper position!

Mark - same here ; I've always found the preview annotation function, especially the Text option, to be inconsistent. Unbelievably I've spent 45 minutes today trying to insert 3 lines of text. Having referred to Previous Help to see if any changes in procedure (no), and diligently proceeding slowly in a stepwise fashion, I get - junk: i.e., nothing, or a gigantic text box opening, or infrequently my text on a different part of the page (which at least can be fixed by dragging to the correct position). I suspect Adobe has not fully cooperated with Apple's attempt to enable its users to manipulate .pdf files without having to purchase the very expensive Adobe program which makes manipulation a breeze.

So I went for a low-tech solution (printing the single page causing grief and handwriting what I needed to add, then re-scanning). Crude but faster. Prefer this to adding programs to fix programs   (too much resemblance to polypharmacy when patient is prescribed 2nd medication to address side effects of 1st med) and because, with apologies to those enthusiastic AI developers, over the years I've witnessed additional layers of complexity accompanied by compromises in productivity -- more things go wrong.

IMHO as a rank amateur, for every gain from a new bell or whistle, there is an equal or greater loss in productivity. (There is some theoretical backup to my observation.)

Cheers from Cloud9

Unitytracks at  https://www.reddit.com/r/osx/comments/2jjajx/yosemite_crippled_pdf_annotation_wi th_preview_any/clh39ce has made a copy of Preview 7.0 available on Google Drive and this seems to do annotations OK in Yosemite (I needed to add an arrow to a photo and it worked OK).  A download link is available at the top of the page that has the zip file on it.

see how many people are frustrated with this who haven't also found this page!!

https://www.reddit.com/r/osx/comments/2jjajx/yosemite_crippled_pdf_annotation_wi th_preview_any/

Hi all

I too have been frustrated and I just updated to El Capitan. For whatever reason, I just noticed that you can left justify your text box simply by clicking on the A icon in the toolbar. It allows you to change the font, size and justification! So simple...

drjuicyk wrote:

 

Hi all

 

I too have been frustrated and I just updated to El Capitan. For whatever reason, I just noticed that you can left justify your text box simply by clicking on the A icon in the toolbar. It allows you to change the font, size and justification! So simple...

OK - but does Captin EO allow you to add hyperlinks to PDFs again?  I'm still on Yosemite Sam and updating soon.

The issue is still here also on El Captain!

Why Apple takes so loong to fix it???

Any workaround?

I have also this issue: adding a text in a pdf file using Preview Apple App.

Open the pdf with PDF Expert Pro by Readdle.

The text appears rotated by 180 degrees!!!

Don't worry everyone, its 2016, 10.11.5 with preview 8.1 and this is still hosed.  thanks apple this used to work great, why is your user experience so variable from release to release, ****!