PDF's in Mail and Preview not displaying correctly

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Level 1

6 points

PDF's in Mail and Preview not displaying correctly

Ever since upgrading to Yosemite PDF's are not displaying correctly. Every time i generate a PDF of a sales quote it seems to lose a lot of information.

But the strange thing is.....

Preview and Mail both show PDF with missing text.

When I open using "Quick Look Attachment" within Mail or Adobe Acrobat it looks perfect.

When emailed, recipients (mostly Windows users) seem to have no problem opening it and seeing all text.

So far seen that issue is only in Preview and Mail

Only has happened since upgrading to Yosemite

PDF is created using web based ZOHO CRM to build quotes.

See image below to see the difference in what Mail and Preview sees compared with how other apps open the same PDF.

NOTE: sensitive info has been purposely blurred on image.

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

Posted on Nov 6, 2014 10:50 AM

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Answer 1

Feb 5, 2017 7:30 PM in response to pancutt

I was having the same issue. I annotated a PDF in preview, then sent it to a windows user who annotated it again using adobe and emailed it back to me. The photos added to the PDF by the windows/adobe user were not visible in the document when I opened it in preview, but were visible when I hovered over the document and "previewed" it using a click of spacebar...

I was able to get around this on my MacBook pro by control-clicking the PDF and clicking "open with" -> then choosing google chrome (of note, it did not work to open with safari). the document opened in a google chrome tab perfectly. then I selected print, and saved it as a pdf. When I opened the new saved pdf using apple preview, the images displayed correctly.

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Answer 2

Feb 5, 2017 7:32 PM in response to rmcconn11

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Answer 3

Eric Root

Level 10

684,597 points

Nov 6, 2014 1:35 PM in response to pancutt

Do a backup, using either Time Machine or a cloning program, to ensure files/data can be recovered. Two backups are better than one.

Try setting up another admin user account to see if the same problem continues. If Back-to-My Mac is selected in System Preferences, the Guest account will not work. The intent is to see if it is specific to one account or a system wide problem. This account can be deleted later.

Isolating an issue by using another user account

Try booting into the Safe Mode using your normal account. Disconnect all peripherals except those needed for the test. Shut down the computer and then power it back up after waiting 10 seconds. Immediately after hearing the startup chime, hold down the shift key and continue to hold it until the gray Apple icon and a progress bar appear and again when you log in. The boot up is significantly slower than normal. This will reset some caches, forces a directory check, and disables all startup and login items, among other things. When you reboot normally, the initial reboot may be slower than normal. If the system operates normally, there may be 3rd party applications which are causing a problem. Try deleting/disabling the third party applications after a restart by using the application un-installer. For each disable/delete, you will need to restart if you don’t do them all at once.

Safe Mode - Yosemite

Safe Mode - About

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Answer 4

pancutt Author

Level 1

6 points

Nov 6, 2014 6:38 PM in response to Eric Root

Thanks Eric. I tried opening the pdf's under another login and have the same issue.

It's strange as the text is there as i can click and drag and the text blocks highlight (although i still cant see the actual characters). So I hit copy and I was actually able to paste the content in another app. The fact i'm able to view the PDF in other viewers perfectly, and the fact the content is actually there, although cannot be seen must mean it is something to do with how Preview renders the text?

Is there a different Preview app I can use that would work within Mail also? Hopefully I can use a workaround until an update alleviates this issue?

If anyone would like to download the PDF in question to test here is a link to download (ensure you download it to view in Preview):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B23nlSLnGEaLYm1INmUtSEZRYnM/view?usp=sharing

Thanks again,

Carl

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Answer 5

Dec 1, 2014 9:46 AM in response to pancutt

Having exactly the same problem. Major issue for me! Not all pdfs but enough to me major problem.

Thanks for running the tests, Pancutt.

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Answer 6

Eric Root

Level 10

684,597 points

Dec 1, 2014 12:19 PM in response to pancutt

Preview corruption.

Do a backup.

Quit Preview.

Go to Finder and select your user/home folder. With that Finder window as the front window, either select Finder/View/Show View options or go command - J. When the View options opens, check ’Show Library Folder’. That should make your user library folder visible in your user/home folder. Remove the following.

Containers/com.apple.Preview

Preferences/com.apple.Preview.LSSharedFileList.plist

Preferences/com.apple.Preview.SandboxedPersistentURLs.LSSharedFileList.plist

Saved Application State/com.apple.Preview.savedState

Credit Linc Davis for this solution.

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Answer 7

Dec 1, 2014 12:43 PM in response to Eric Root

Thanks, Eric

Tried your suggestion from Linc Davis. I quit Preview. I did not find the com.apple.Preview.Sandboxed.... file anywhere on my Mac. I did find the other files/folders and moved them to trash. However, the problem persists.

I tried the same procedure again. This time I did not find the Saved Application State file/folder either. Again, the problem was not solved.

Any other ideas?

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Answer 8

pancutt Author

Level 1

6 points

Dec 1, 2014 1:59 PM in response to Fred Ochs

I'm still suffering through this problem and also tried Eric's method, but had exactly the same result as Fred. Any further ideas much appreciated....?

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Answer 9

qajaqbob

Level 1

0 points

Dec 2, 2014 1:08 PM in response to pancutt

Just another data point - I have the same problem with PDFs created by Zoho CRM under Preview on Yosemite.

The document looks blank in Preview, but there is text there that shows up on a thumbnail, and it is selectable text, but it is invisible in the main Preview window.

The document prints fine, though, and it looks fine under Adobe Reader.

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Answer 10

dr_ruben

Level 1

0 points

Dec 3, 2014 8:22 AM in response to qajaqbob

After upgrading to Yosemite I have the same problem, part of the images in PDFs are not displayed correctly.

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Answer 11

Jan 3, 2015 2:15 PM in response to Eric Root

After trying Eric's solution above I rant into the same issues. THEN, I went into Preview Preferences - PDF and deselected "Smooth text and line art."

PROBLEM SOLVED!

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