El Capitan Preview App Zoom Issue with PDFs

Question

Level 1

15 points

El Capitan Preview App Zoom Issue with PDFs

Hi everybody,

after upgrading from Yosemite to El Capitan (10.11.5), I notice some strange behavior when zooming in PDF files with Preview.app. Crossing a certain zoom level obviously breaks the screen redraw. The window turns white, while text and images vanish. Has anyone else seen this behavior with Preview.app? Is there anything I can do to cure this issue?

Thanks in advance,

kind regards,

Alex

MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.5), MacBook Pro 13'' Late 2011

Posted on Jun 24, 2016 8:38 AM

Reply

Answer 1

erin_b1

Community Specialist

Jun 26, 2016 9:50 AM in response to A_H

Hi A_H,

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities! This is a great place to get help with the zoom issue you're experiencing within the Preview app since updating to El Capitan. I'll be happy to provide you with some suggestions.

To begin, let's have you completely quit the Preview app, and then restart your Mac. Here are instructions on force quitting an application:

Force an app to close on your Mac

The next step would be to restart your Mac in safe mode. The title of the support article is a bit misleading, but this step is very valid. Starting your Mac in safe mode will clear out certain caches, perform system checks, and prevent certain user items from opening automatically. Here's the information on how to get into safe mode:

Try safe mode if your Mac doesn't finish starting up

If after you restart normally you're still running into issues within Preview, I would recommend creating a test user account. This will help to isolate whether this is a user-specific issue or something system-wide. You can use the following resource:

How to test an issue in another user account on your Mac

Have a great day!

Reply

Answer 2

VikingOSX

Level 10

124,016 points

Jun 26, 2016 9:50 AM in response to A_H

As a test, I have a single-page PDF with a 96 dpi letter 'A' centered on it. The letter is visible up to 600%, and then vanishes entirely from the page at 650% or higher. Reducing the enlargement by increments of 50, the letter only reappears at a 400% enlargement.

In Preview Preferences : PDF panel, I have Size on screen equals size on printout selected. If in this same panel, I select 1 point equals 1 screen pixel, then enlargement is supported out to 800%, before the 'A' disappears.

The same PDF enlarges legibly to 1600% in Adobe Acrobat Reader DC.

Reply

Answer 3

A_H Author

Level 1

15 points

Jun 26, 2016 9:53 AM in response to VikingOSX

Thank you so much both for your quick answers!

First off, I performed the tests suggested by erin_b1. The outcome was interesting, though I have a hard time to correctly interpret what I found.

After creating a different user account and logging into it, nothing changed. So the outcome was entirely negative. The PDF contents were still disappearing when a certain threshold was reached. And my findings were almost the same as the ones reported by VikingOSX. Thank you, my friend, at least I have the confirmation that I am not the only one with this issue.
Secondly, when I booted my MacBook in safe mode, the issue disappeared. Though I must say, the computer became very laggy, it seems that a certain graphics acceleration function gets disabled when starting up in safe mode.

But how to interpret these findings? I don’t think there are any graphic-related plugins I installed. I have Affinity Designer and Photo and the Finder extensions of the latter program. I also run a legacy version of Adobe Indesign CS 6 and associated software. But the issue affects both the Preview application and the internal PDF Reader of Safari, so I believe it must have its origin at a deeper system level.

Furthermore, the issue shows up with a clean install of El Capitan on an external drive, and zooming in on my Mac Mini gives me a crash under El Capitan. Since there is not even a dedicated feedback page for Preview, I don’t know where to report these bugs!

Once again, thank you very much! Any further ideas would be very appreciated … 🙂

Alex

Reply

Answer 4

VikingOSX

Level 10

124,016 points

Jun 26, 2016 10:19 AM in response to A_H

The fact that the Preview zoom issue persisted when signed into a new user account excludes a Preview configuration settings issue in your login account. The absence of Preview zoom issues in Safe Boot mode may have to do with certain drivers/libraries not loading in that mode, It would not surprise me that the same PDF zoom functionality is shared between Preview and the default Safari web plug-in.

I am current with Affinity Designer and Photo, but have not enabled any of Photo's extensions. Other than Adobe Acrobat Reader, I have no other Adobe products installed.

As Preview is an integral application installed by OS X, you can use the OS X Feedback form.

Reply

Answer 5

A_H Author

Level 1

15 points

Jun 27, 2016 12:16 AM in response to VikingOSX

Thank you very much for your swift reply!

I filed a bug report through the indicated form, and I hope this really annoying issue will be resolved in the next iteration of OS X. I would be very happy, if anyone who experiences the same issue could send a bug report to Apple as well.

Could it be that the issue has to do with the implementation of the new Metal framework on the Mac? As far as I see, Metal is not supported on my machine (MacBook Pro Late 2011), but there should certainly be a fallback for older Macintosh computers, shouldn’t it?

Reply

Answer 6

Aug 29, 2016 10:45 AM in response to A_H

Hi Alex!

Don’t panic, you are not the only one having this frustrating issue. When it’s about zooming in PDFs my late ’11 MBP suffocates like a sloth underwater...

In safe mode - just as for you - the problem disappears, but then it’s all back. Unfortunately I didn’t hear any solutions so far. Now I’m going to send a bug report and hope for the best too.

Reply