Install previous version of Preview.app?

[PalacePlayers]

Ever since 10.12.2 Preview has been a living disaster, with PDFs glitching and blinking non stop. I was dissapointed to see that there was no fix for this in 10.12.3, so I'm wondering if there is a way to download a previous build of the Preview app and run it on 10.12.3?

I'm a student and right now I'm almost completely paralyzed since Preview is bordeline unusable. I've tried Adobe Reader and other similar PDF apps but sadly non of them suits my needs like Preview did before they broke it. Thanks

 

[fisherking]

they didn't break it... you're having an issue with it. try setting up a test admin account, and using preview there. does it work? is it problematic? that will, at least, tell you if the problem's global, or tied to your user account. a place to start.

also (and should be obvious): call apple.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

OP is right, if perhaps a bit melodramatic about it. Preview still has some significant compatibility issues with other apps; if you annotate a PDF in Preview chances are no one else can see the annotations. You have to end up "Flattening" the PDF (Print dialog > Save as PDF) to make the annotations part of the document, and no longer editable, if you want to share the file. 10.12.3 at least did fix the issue of selecting/searching text in some OCR'd files, which was a bigger headache to me in that there wasn't a good work-around for that bug.

As far as installing an old version - ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I haven't tried. I've just been putting up with flattening the file if it needs to go to a different person or app; hopefully a fix comes along.

 

[chrfr]

Ever since 10.12.2 Preview has been a living disaster, with PDFs glitching and blinking non stop. I was dissapointed to see that there was no fix for this in 10.12.3, so I'm wondering if there is a way to download a previous build of the Preview app and run it on 10.12.3?

I'm a student and right now I'm almost completely paralyzed since Preview is bordeline unusable. I've tried Adobe Reader and other similar PDF apps but sadly non of them suits my needs like Preview did before they broke it. Thanks

The Preview app is really just a front end for the underlying PDF software that's in OS X. You won't be able to replace the app with an older one and have it work, and the bugs aren't in Preview.app itself anyway. If you really need to use an older version of Preview, you'll need to backdate the entire operating system on the computer.

 

[Ebenezum]

they didn't break it... you're having an issue with it. try setting up a test admin account, and using preview there. does it work? is it problematic? that will, at least, tell you if the problem's global, or tied to your user account. a place to start.

also (and should be obvious): call apple.

Problems in the PDFKit in the Sierra are well known, while OP might have not phrased the problem correctly that doesn't mean it isn't real.

Ever since 10.12.2 Preview has been a living disaster, with PDFs glitching and blinking non stop. I was dissapointed to see that there was no fix for this in 10.12.3, so I'm wondering if there is a way to download a previous build of the Preview app and run it on 10.12.3?

I'm a student and right now I'm almost completely paralyzed since Preview is bordeline unusable. I've tried Adobe Reader and other similar PDF apps but sadly non of them suits my needs like Preview did before they broke it. Thanks

Unfortunately your only practical option is to use older OS that has functional Preview, like chrfr said using older Preview version won't work because of the underlaying PDFKit problems...

As for what Apple was thinking when they released buggy PDFKit I have no idea.

 

[benthewraith]

they didn't break it... you're having an issue with it. try setting up a test admin account, and using preview there. does it work? is it problematic? that will, at least, tell you if the problem's global, or tied to your user account. a place to start.

also (and should be obvious): call apple.

I had the same problem. Took it to the Apple Store and they sent my MBP off for a logic board replacement. Went ahead and bought a brand new out of the box 2016 rMBP, same issue.

It's preview. And it only occurs when you start adding annotations to it.

 

[sidewinder]

It's not Preview, it's the OS:

https://tidbits.com/article/16966

 

[fisherking]

my apologies (hey, i was wrong once before, too)... i regularly annotate images (pngs or jpgs), and send them off to others, without issue. guess the issue happens with pdfs...