maharaj1902 Author

Level 1

23 points

PDF text search problem in Preview for Mac OS Mojave

I have a Macbook Pro, and I just upgraded to Mac OS Mojave. I'm having trouble searching for text within PDFs using the Mojave version of Preview. When I used Preview before the upgrade to Mojave, I was able to search for text within PDFs (using the command-F function). Now, however, the PDF text search feature in Preview only seems to work with very few PDFs. The PDFs I'm trying to search within are definitely searchable PDFs, so this seems to be a glitch with the Mojave version of Preview. Any suggestions on what I can do?

MacBook Pro, macOS Mojave (10.14)

Posted on Sep 30, 2018 4:07 AM

Top-ranking reply

arpa

Level 1

4 points

Posted on Nov 15, 2018 6:18 AM

This bug drove me nuts! I fixed it by trying two things:

Switched off all markup extensions in system preferences. These features were added in the latest Mojave update, I thought they might be related somehow.
I found a folder called searchindexes and deleted its contents:

~▸ ⁨Library⁩ ▸ ⁨Containers⁩ ▸ ⁨com.apple.Preview⁩ ▸ ⁨Data⁩ ▸ ⁨Library⁩ ▸ ⁨Application Support⁩ ▸ ⁨Preview⁩ ▸ ⁨SearchIndexes⁩

The folder's size was about 200 mb in my case.

I think it was the second step that resolved the issue, so try that first. Test to see if everything is working properly before deleting the contents by emptying the trash.

I also tried reindexing spotlight, installing a beta version of Mojave, downgrading to a stable build again, copying the preview.app from an older system... nothing worked! I'm still having troubles with images not being displayed in some pdf's, very annoying. There's something seriously wrong with preview 10.1, hope they'll fix it!

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23 replies

maharaj1902 Author

Level 1

23 points

Sep 30, 2018 8:01 AM in response to dialabrain

Will do. Thanks for all your help!

dialabrain

Level 10

135,869 points

Sep 30, 2018 8:03 AM in response to maharaj1902

You're welcome.

jokevcv

Level 1

4 points

Oct 1, 2018 11:20 AM in response to maharaj1902

I believe related to the same issue I can select text but when copy it and try to paste, it's blank. The text is visually selected but can't be copied.

Dec 4, 2018 8:20 AM in response to maharaj1902

I have the same problem, no idea why it doesn't work. Dialabrain method works tough. Thanks a lot!

maharaj1902 Author

Level 1

23 points

Sep 30, 2018 5:03 AM in response to dialabrain

Yeah, so far, I've only found one PDF that I can search on the first go in Mojave Preview, but all the other PDFs I've tried can't be searched in Preview until I close and reopen them. Mysterious, indeed!

Ferrán

Level 1

8 points

Dec 3, 2018 3:16 PM in response to dialabrain

I can confirm that too: just updated to macOS Mojave, unsearchable PDF [it was searchable in previous version] open in Preview, just closed it, reopened and search worked again. Thanks a lot for the trick, but Apple will have to solve this, opening/closing/reopening is not a solution for people that, like me, do work all day long doing searches inside PDFs.

Saluditos,

Ferrán.

arpa

Level 1

4 points

Dec 3, 2018 11:54 PM in response to Ferrán

Hi Ferrán,

Try deleting the content of this folder:

(Username)▸ ⁨Library⁩ ▸ ⁨Containers⁩ ▸ ⁨com.apple.Preview⁩ ▸ ⁨Data⁩ ▸ ⁨Library⁩ ▸ ⁨Application Support⁩ ▸ ⁨Preview⁩ ▸ ⁨SearchIndexes⁩

Try first before emptying the trash!

Arie

Dec 10, 2018 8:29 AM in response to maharaj1902

This worked for me: Restarting the computer was suggested on another forum. It did not work for me but it gave me the idea:

I repaired the permissions on my home folder;

and did a first aid on the HDD in DiskUtility.

then a restart (some people repair permissions 2x with restarts in between).

Everything works again perfectly.

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PDF text search problem in Preview for Mac OS Mojave