Issues with Preview App Annotations Notes and Highlights in High Sierra

I just updated to High Sierra from El Capitan.

Preview shows a red box over may parts of text. It goes away when i resize the window, but goes into other pages. Really weird. Basically not working right at all. ?

Preview showing a pdf document page with red over the text.

If I move the window it goes away but comes back again on other pages.

Apple leadership and product teams do not read, or participate in these user-to-user support communities. Asking Apple to fix things here is completely ineffective for that reason.

You can submit a feedback request to the macOS product team that has responsibility for Preview.

I have the same problem on a new computer. Nothing installed except for the pre installed programs. Just opened a pdf in preview and it deleted the text in almost all my annotations. It must have somehow written the changes into the file as well because opening the same file on my old computer, where it was created, the annotations were missing. It was a file in my cloud so I did not have a copy and now it seems like it can't be undone. Made a safety copy of some other pdf's and then tried again, (also in safe mode), same result.

Please advise

This is not helpful in the least. The issue persists with all of these workarounds. Seems the problem on your end, not the user's. Can you please advise on how to restore Preview to the same functionality before the latest OS version?

Update to 10.13.2. This fixes the problem. Even though the square when you click the note is very small, so you have to scroll a lot to read longer annotations, the update at least fixes so that the text does not get deleted.

I have frequently used Preview Notes over the years and would like to continue using them. Updated to macOS 10.13.2 and there has been no improvement in the Preview Note bugs discussed above.

I have resorted to adding Preview Text objects instead of Preview Note objects. As an Apple Developer this has NOT been a very good "Use Experience"! I wonder how Steve Jobs would feel about this type of situation? Is there no plan to fix Preview?

Preview has been categorically horrid from version 8 onward. Bugs, loss of functionality, and workarounds to perform even basic tasks.

Preview 7 was arguably the best version of all. It worked so well that when the buggy version 8 rolled out, some enterprising non-Apple developers created a backdoor to reinstate Preview 7. But a few OS versions later and Apple made version 7 unusable.

Flashforward to the crapshow that is Preview 10 with even more bugs built into the program.

Add to the issues the loss of automatic text entry once the note is created. Now each time you have to double-click the note to start typing.

And don't get me started on the "Show Notes" function in Print which used to create text bubbles in the left margin--now they are simply blank yellow boxes.

Apple has let this embarrassment drag on for years. Don't expect them to suddenly take an interest in a free program and provide fixes. Apple...simply...doesn't...care.

I have now switched to Adobe Acrobat permanently. The layout may not be as good as Preview--but at least the program works!

Not sure why the pride in Apple died with Steve Jobs. It is astounding to me that a company that is supposed to be a leader in the tech industry would not feel shame for releasing such a blatantly defective program.

Then again, a precedent was set with that bug-infested Podcast app for iPhone.

This is not helpful. The current version of Preview deletes and corrupts annotations. Additionally, they are more difficult to view than in previous versions, but more egregiously, it's impossible to rely on this app to save notes anymore.

Just wasted hours of work academic work.

From what I'm seeing here and elsewhere it looks like Apple isn't fixing this -- and it's not fixable from our end even with workarounds.

Sadly, I just downloaded Adobe DC and made it my default reader. Apple's negligence on this will be a factor when I need a new computer.

To everyone on this forum. Since Apple has not fixed the issue, and we all seem to hate Adobe, I started using Skim (https://skim-app.sourceforge.io/ - something's up with the hyperlinks on this site). It's pretty good and there are also other alternatives. I like it because it doesn't copy/paste with all the awkward line breaks.

If you do find this helpful, do mark it that way so that others don't have to suffer 😐.

Skim is based on the same underlying frameworks as Preview — and works well due to its different origin, and developer focus. Don't overlook the power of Skim's AppleScript support, and included command-line tool that are discussed in the documentation.

Skim is at the mercy of Apple because it uses the same underlying PDFKit developer frameworks as Preview. When Apple makes mistakes in the PDFKit framework, and they do — it impacts Skim until either Apple fixes it, or Skim ingenuity codes around the issue.

I have found that mixing annotation additions between Preview and Adobe Acrobat Reader DC is bound to reveal incompatibilities with Preview. Partly because the PDF support in Preview is ancient and incomplete — and partly because Acrobat Pro/Reader DC implement annotation differently in a richer, more frequently updated PDF application. Adobe is in the best position to do this.

apple - PLEASE fix this!!!!! we are all losing so much work - the content in annotated notes is being deleted even after hitting save - and what is more frustrating is that it doesnt even happen with all the notes in the PDF in preview...

Skim receives far more development cycles than Preview. Just because it uses the same underlying framework (library) as Preview, does not mean that it works the same way. It is simply a better application because it is developed that way. Try it. See if your results differ from using Preview.