High Sierra - blurry PDF's in Preview and broken QuickLook

[Transgredi]

After having really positive experience with Sierra I thought immediate upgrade was really good idea. Unfortunately, I was wrong - it's really buggy edition with many broken things inside. Here you can see how laggy Preview is in rendering the PDF pages and how blurry the fonts are comparing to Adobe Reader or even the QuickLook: https://imgur.com/a/Q8LnI.

Speaking of QuickLook - it's also broken. In this screen recording you can see how unresponsive the app is:

.

I really hope they are going to fix it quickly as Adobe Reader itself is huge piece of crap... :/ BTW: I tried using Skim instead of Preview but it has blurry fonts as well.

 

[timothevs]

Ugh that is rather abysmal. Thank you for posting a video documenting the problem. I wonder whether this too, is a Metal 2 issue.

That said, the .1 update can't come soon enough. As a person who works on research articles (writing/evaluating), flawless PDF functionality is a must for me.

 

[TokMok3]

After having really positive experience with Sierra I thought immediate upgrade was really good idea. Unfortunately, I was wrong - it's really buggy edition with many broken things inside. Here you can see how laggy Preview is in rendering the PDF pages and how blurry the fonts are comparing to Adobe Reader or even the QuickLook: https://imgur.com/a/Q8LnI.

Speaking of QuickLook - it's also broken. In this screen recording you can see how unresponsive the app is:

.

I really hope they are going to fix it quickly as Adobe Reader itself is huge piece of crap... :/ BTW: I tried using Skim instead of Preview but it has blurry fonts as well.

Yes!, I have experiencing the same thing on a MacBook Pro 2015. A lot of beach balling with preview.

 

[jmd.au]

I'm having this same issues, as well as a bunch of other infuriating Finder/Quick Look related bugs with High Sierra (video scrubbers not appearing in fullscreen, items disappearing under window header in Finder column view). Using MacBook Pro 13" 2015.

Quick Look has had substantial bugs for me across various Macs since Yosemite – so it's hard for me to believe its an isolated case. I'm surprised there isn't more frustration.

 

[ashleykaryl]

Poor quality PDF quality in Preview is nothing new. I've seen it in older versions prior to Sierra as well, so it's a mystery why Apple can't seem to fix this permanently.

 

[maj88]

Same here... PDF blurry in Preview.. Also then you use Quick Look (hitting space button) you have to wait long time to see something. Whereas Adobe Acrobat Reader DC is super fast..

 

[TokMok3]

I was using High Sierra, but only for this problem I had to reinstall Sierra. Acrobat Reader works fine on High Sierra but when I want to look up a word in the dictionary it opens the browser to access an online website for the definition. I really like the convenience of macOS dictionaries. I tried to look in the settings to use the stock dictionary but I did not find any option. I think I have to be on High Sierra until Preview can render PDFs correctly.

Does any body know how to activate the stock dictionary on Acrobat Reader?

 

[TokMok3]

Did Apple fixed this issue on the latest MacOS High Sierra?

 

[ashleykaryl]

No it still looks pretty blurry to me. I just opened a file and then compared it to Acrobat reader.

 

[TokMok3]

No it still looks pretty blurry to me. I just opened a file and then compared it to Acrobat reader.

Thank you for your answer. I can't believe this. I bought an iPhone X and to view some 4K videos I need High Sierra. The problem is that preview is the one of my main apps, I like how the dictionaries are integrated. Wow.. unbelievable!

 

[ashleykaryl]

I struggle to think of anything that has been allowed to persist for so long in the OS as a bug. It's come and gone for years, so when I released a book in PDF format it came with an advisory note at the beginning about likely softness if using Apple Preview and a recommendation to use Acrobat instead.

I prefer using Preview, but the softness is genuinely annoying and on bigger large screens it's horrible. It's not just images either, because the text is soft as well.

 

[inarush]

I was just wondering if by any chance a fix (or workaround) has ever been found for this very annoying issue? It's been a while since it's been reported to Apple...

 

[ashleykaryl]

I was just wondering if by any chance a fix (or workaround) has ever been found for this very annoying issue? It's been a while since it's been reported to Apple...

Sadly no. I just try not to read PDF files using Preview for any length of time. This issue has come and gone now for a good ten years and Apple just seems incapable of finding a permanent solution.

 

[timothevs]

Ugh, precisely the reason why I haven't updated my work iMac to High Sierra. I read and edit journals, and papers, and am very used to annotating the same in Preview, and that works perfectly in Sierra.

I really hope whichever Mountain version they go for next, fixes this issue. I would hate for Sierra to be my last OS X.

 

[Transgredi]

10.13.5 - still not fixed... It looks like Apple simply doesn't care...

 

[MacGizmo]

Odd... I don't experience any of those problems on any of the Macs I have access to.

 

[Transgredi]

Odd... I don't experience any of those problems on any of the Macs I have access to.

Interesting... Few weeks ago I paid a visit to an Apple Store and started playing around with MacBooks and iMacs. Each had the issue present :/

 

[MacGizmo]

Interesting... Few weeks ago I paid a visit to an Apple Store and started playing around with MacBooks and iMacs. Each had the issue present :/

Perhaps it's due to the fact that I have 32GB RAM and a 4GB video card... although, the newest machine I have at home is a 2013 iMac. I dunno, but I have no lag, no blurriness.

 

[Transgredi]

@MacGizmo PS: Apple is aware of that issue - see screenshot from the Apple Bug Reporter.

 

[inarush]

This is really frustrating.

 

[timothevs]

Does anyone know if this is persistent in the new Mojave beta as well?

 

[TokMok3]

Does anyone know if this is persistent in the new Mojave beta as well?

Yes! I installed Mojave yesterday. They can't fix that problem.

 

[TokMok3]

This is really frustrating.

yes it is! An expensive computer that can't render a pdf. Chrome renders clearer pdfs than safari.

 

[dcmaccam]

My 2011 27inch iMac running High Sierra renders pdf files fine including when viewed in Preview and Quicklook.

 

[RedTomato]

I just ran into this issue. I sometimes receive a series of jpg images of various documents e.g page 1.jpg, page 2.jpg etc. In the past, I'd just put them together in Preview and save as PDF. All fine.

Today I ran through this again, and WTF - the preview is all blurry! I've tried various Export as .. and Print / Print to PDF options, but to no avail.

Very frustrating. Running OSX 10.13.5.