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What is going on with PDFs / Preview? See attached

C

ch02ce

macrumors member
Original poster
This has happened a few times over the course of owning my macs - sometimes a PDF will not load correctly.

The problem is only under OSX, the very same pdf will display fine in Adobe reader for Windows.

example.jpg
 
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First, did you try rebooting? That solves a lot of problems and should be one of the first steps in troubleshooting. You could also try repairing permissions. Have you tried using Adobe Reader for Mac?
 
Yes yes, rebooting, permissions, all that jazz. Doesn't change anything across multiple macs.

This is a PDF one of our offices created that will go up on the institute's website, and as such it has to be readable by Preview... I'd rather not leave a note that Mac users need to download Acrobat just to see our newsletter.
 
ch02ce said:
Yes yes, rebooting, permissions, all that jazz. Doesn't change anything across multiple macs.

This is a PDF one of our offices created that will go up on the institute's website, and as such it has to be readable by Preview... I'd rather not leave a note that Mac users need to download Acrobat just to see our newsletter.
Click to expand...
If you want to post it, I can try it to see if it acts the same way on Preview for me.
 
Sure, here is one from last year that does the same thing:

xx
 
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ch02ce said:
Sure, here is one from last year that does the same thing:
Click to expand...
Here's what it shows for me with Preview (on the left) and Adobe Reader:
ScreenCap 6.PNG​
I notice the document was created in Microsoft Publisher, which doesn't exist in a Mac version. I tried saving a copy with Adobe Reader, but it doesn't allow me to make any changes, so the copy ends up with the same problem as the original. I've used this method on other PDFs that restrict modification. Saving a copy usually allows Preview to open and modify.

If you have Adobe Acrobat, try opening the document and saving a new copy, to see if it changes anything. I'm thinking the fact that it was created in Publisher might be affecting viewing with Preview. Also, you might try looking at your PDF options when saving from Publisher.
karsten said:
it's screwed up on my end fwiw maybe you got hacked?
Click to expand...
Not a chance. This is a case of file incompatibility, not hacking of any sort.
ch02ce said:
Here is the PDF in which I first noticed it from outside our institution - see the Table of Contents
Click to expand...
Same issue with this one. Note that it views fine on Safari, just not with Preview.
 
Thank you, the Publisher lead is good, I will investigate that a bit further. I'm not in charge of publishing the document, they just asked me to see if it worked on osx, as our last four didn't.

Thanks again
 
GGJstudios said:
Also, you might try looking at your PDF options when saving from Publisher.
Click to expand...


Yeah. This is a PDF v1.5 (Acrobat 6). Preview is not an ideal PDF viewer for more recent flavours of PDF.

Working solely in InDesign, I'm not familiar with MS Publisher, but ask your layout person to see what export options there are for PDFs. Anything like PDF v1.3 or 1.4 (Acrobat 4 or 5) should be fine... or PDF/X-1a, regardless of downsampled image resolution.

Edit: After a second look, this is one weirdly put-together document. Most of the type has been rasterised which is why you're seeing all this graphic banding in a newer flavour of PDF. Anyway, yes, converting the file to Acrobat 4 compatibility in Acrobat Pro creates a file that Preview is happy with, so messing with the export settings in MS Publisher will do the trick.

The rasterised type is another problem.
 
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