HT201740: Mac Basics: Preview app views and edits images and PDFs

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random_dg

Q: Bad performance with Preview

I scanned a few pages and am now working on fixing various small issues with the resulting PDF file. The file is 11 pages long, its size is 4.4MB and it's made up of non-compressed pages that were previously scanned into TIFF format.

When I scroll the file, Preview takes 100% of one CPU core and doesn't let go until I switch to another window, and it does it bad. The scrolling is not smooth and it isn't comfortable to use. It is very disappointing, because the same issues happened with Preview for OSX 10.6 on my older MacBook Pro a few years ago. This shouldn't happen on a mid-2014 MacBook Pro.

Furthermore, the Preview product doesn't get updates through the App Store, and it doesn't have a "support community" on apple.com. It looks like an abandoned product that hasn't been updated much in years, now that I come to think of it. So why deliver it at all with OSX Yosemite?

MacBook Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.2)

Posted on Feb 5, 2015 9:09 AM

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Q: Bad performance with Preview

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  • by notcloudy,Helpful

    notcloudy notcloudy Feb 5, 2015 9:22 AM in response to random_dg
    Level 4 (1,190 points)
    Desktops
    Feb 5, 2015 9:22 AM in response to random_dg

    Preview can be used instead of Adobe to read PDF files - and Apple does let you print to PDF - so you can save web pages or whatever in a portable format - and you can update those files.

     

    My CanoScan 8800F MP navigator allows me to scan multiple documents into a PDF file - some of which are 50 pages long - I then have no problem moving pages around with Preview.

     

    Your problem may be scanning them in as TIFF files.  

     

    One way you may have better luck with tiff  - is to import the TIFF files into IPHOTO - then print all "pictures" in the event to PDF file.

    (I did that with one project as a way of combining individual pages after I had restored them in PHotoshop).

  • by Linc Davis,

    Linc Davis Linc Davis Feb 5, 2015 7:38 PM in response to random_dg
    Level 10 (207,926 points)
    Applications
    Feb 5, 2015 7:38 PM in response to random_dg

    Does this happen with all PDF's, or only one?

  • by random_dg,

    random_dg random_dg Feb 8, 2015 10:11 AM in response to Linc Davis
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 8, 2015 10:11 AM in response to Linc Davis

    This was just one. Like what the user notcloudy wrote, it seems to also be the only PDF file that I have that was converted from TIFF to PDF (using tiff2pdf that is a standard utility in many UNIX distributions, also on OSX). I originally scanned it into PDF, but had to convert to TIFF in order to trim the edges properly and improve it using ScanTailor. So the advice posted might be helpful as a workaround, but it still looks like a bug. This doesn't happen with Adobe Reader, but Adobe Reader is unsuitable for another task that I have at hand.

  • by notcloudy,Helpful

    notcloudy notcloudy Feb 9, 2015 9:55 AM in response to random_dg
    Level 4 (1,190 points)
    Desktops
    Feb 9, 2015 9:55 AM in response to random_dg

    It may have something to do with your setup and third party software you are using.

     

    The PDF file I printed from IPHOTO - is 143MB and I have no problem scrolling through it in preview.

     

    I have 4GB of memory with snow leopard and at the time I purchased this mac - to keep cost down - and because I would not be doing videos just picture traded 1 of the processors for the added memory.    My mac is off-line when I am working in photoshop/printing etc.   and when on line I pick up mail then take mail off line and close it -- 

  • by random_dg,

    random_dg random_dg Feb 11, 2015 12:50 AM in response to notcloudy
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 11, 2015 12:50 AM in response to notcloudy

    Hi,

    Like I wrote - it's probably something to do with third part software that creates the PDF. By the way, my previous MacBook was somewhat like yours is - 4GB memory with snow leopard. I had similar situations over there as well. Full books weighing 80+MB working fine in Preview, and some small 3-4 page scans working really slow in preview.

     

    The thing is, PDF is a standard used these days for many purposes, and there are numerous programs that read it and write it. Perhaps some of them do it better than others, but they all conform to the standard. I don't find the excuse "third-party software writes bad files" as valid in this situation. If there were an error in the file, as in a file that does not conform to the standard in some manner, and thus is not a PDF file, I'd expect Preview to not open it. However, once it opened it, I find it hard to explain why it takes 2-3 seconds on a third generation Core i5 processor to scroll one page.

    Anyway, I noticed that the pages in the PDF document are very large so I'm assuming that's the problem. So I believe the explanation to be that Preview takes a long time because of the size of the pages, even though their disk space isn't large. Looks to me that Preview can be improved to handle it better.