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Has Preview/PDF viewing been fixed in 10.10.3?
- Thread starter bcam117
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Thanks folks.
This is extremely disappointing...I'd been hoping that 10.10.3 would finally correct this oversight.
Looks like i'll be sticking with my downgraded Mavericks until 10.10.? (or perhaps never?!).
What sort of PDFs are you all using where this happens?
I use PDFs all the time, from simple single page ones up to more complex multi-page scientific papers from all over the place. I've never had a problem with legibility or lag or performance.
Anyone have any examples of PDFs that bog Preview down?
I use PDFs all the time, from simple single page ones up to more complex multi-page scientific papers from all over the place. I've never had a problem with legibility or lag or performance.
Anyone have any examples of PDFs that bog Preview down?
I'm not sure I can share the PDF that is the cause of my complaints. I'll try to find out if it's OK to post it widely.
Be aware - it worked just fine before Yosemite. It also works fine on Adobe Acrobat on Windows. It also shows the same issues across 3 Macs.
The file is about a 36" x 36" non-complex map. It's not a large file size either
I did supply Apple with this file, when I opened my bug report against it many months ago now.
While I haven't tried it, I've read that Acrobat suffers from the same issues; perhaps a common shared library is contributing to the issue.
Ah if only Adobe Reader fixed the issue...as I understand it, the problem lies in the updated version of PDFkit packaged with Yosemite - and is particularly acute for older PDF files. I have found that, this has had further implications for other programs using PDFs outside of Adobe and Preview, to include reference management software like Endnote and Papers.
I agree that there is certainly a significant tradeoff here...but for those of use that work with PDFs all day, every day (especially older, often massive PDFs originally compiled in the 1990s) something has got to give. Whilst using Yosemite (clean installs of 10.0, 10.1 and 10.2) I discovered that accessing each successive file degrades computer performance even further...forcing me to reboot several times a day.
Not an ideal workflow to say the least. I must admit that now being back on Mavericks I definitely miss some of Yosemite's whiz-bang features (sms messages being a prominent one)...but sloppy PDF rendering is certainly not one of them!
Downloaded DC and performance isn't great. Better than Preview in Yosemite to be sure, but very very far behind what Preview could do pre-Yosemite.
Sadly, best performance now is Acrobat Reader in XP via VM.
Thanks for checking.
Now I'm curious about Mavericks/Lion Preview performance in a guest vs. XP AR in a guest using Fusion or Parallels (since I'm pretty sure in VirtualBox that XP would be much faster than OS X). I'd try it but again I don't have a PDF that is problematic in Reader, although I work with large ones I guess they are not complex enough.
I don't have any issues with Preview, given it's the right "can opener" for the job. I can't offer much help, however, I've been on both sides of the PDF workflow - creator/distributor and consumer - but I feel that I have been a bit more conscientious than most creators/distributors, for instance, take a look at one of the maps on the City of Portland's web site:
https://www.portlandoregon.gov/transportation/39402
Ugh. They're "pretty", but cumbersome to use on a Mac or a Windows PC. The City used to be one of my clients over a decade ago, and the maps are basically iterations of the those that existed several years ago, and they were created and updated with a Mac. The "doh" issues:
<rant>
The Illustrator files I checked contain 14 fonts that aren't included with the Adobe Creative Cloud subscription (which I have). I couldn't tell you how many non-CC fonts are embedded in that document that the typical computer has to emulate when scrolling about. I copied one of the maps, opened it in Illustrator 18, substituted all of the fonts with Arial, and moving around in Preview was much more manageable. Sticking with system fonts would have been helpful, or rasterizing them might have been the better choice IMO...
Next up is that map document contained hundreds of text objects that were 3/4/5 points in size. Most of the larger "maps" my employers and I use legible 10 point or greater - our older clients, agencies and contractors alike, appreciate a document that can actually be read in the field. All of those tiny fonts can get a computer chugging...
Last nit to pick for now with the document - the map document contains 35 layers! If I were posting this map on the web for general consumption I would have flattened the document so there is 1 layer containing a JPEG image - they're already 3.5MB in size anyway...
Several of my counterparts are still on older versions of Acrobat, CutePDF, or some other PDF creator, and also MS Office. Which use DirectX, which doesn't have a Mac counterpart. Adobe dropped DirectX support with version 10.1, but many pros I know haven't updated past that iteration.
I always call my clients to find out what type of PDF reader they're using, and which OS platform and printer platform is in their office - in 20+ years of drafting, designing, and managing, nobody's asked me those questions - and I've never had a complaint about my work...
</rant>
One fix for the spinning beachball in Preview that's worked for me:
Back up all data. Quit Preview if it's running.
Hold down the option key and select Go>Library from the Finder Menu Bar. From the Library folder, (if they exist) delete the following items:
Two decent PDF viewers: Google Chrome, and LibreOffice Draw (also, a decent PDF editor is built into Draw).
https://www.portlandoregon.gov/transportation/39402
Ugh. They're "pretty", but cumbersome to use on a Mac or a Windows PC. The City used to be one of my clients over a decade ago, and the maps are basically iterations of the those that existed several years ago, and they were created and updated with a Mac. The "doh" issues:
<rant>
The Illustrator files I checked contain 14 fonts that aren't included with the Adobe Creative Cloud subscription (which I have). I couldn't tell you how many non-CC fonts are embedded in that document that the typical computer has to emulate when scrolling about. I copied one of the maps, opened it in Illustrator 18, substituted all of the fonts with Arial, and moving around in Preview was much more manageable. Sticking with system fonts would have been helpful, or rasterizing them might have been the better choice IMO...
Next up is that map document contained hundreds of text objects that were 3/4/5 points in size. Most of the larger "maps" my employers and I use legible 10 point or greater - our older clients, agencies and contractors alike, appreciate a document that can actually be read in the field. All of those tiny fonts can get a computer chugging...
Last nit to pick for now with the document - the map document contains 35 layers! If I were posting this map on the web for general consumption I would have flattened the document so there is 1 layer containing a JPEG image - they're already 3.5MB in size anyway...
Several of my counterparts are still on older versions of Acrobat, CutePDF, or some other PDF creator, and also MS Office. Which use DirectX, which doesn't have a Mac counterpart. Adobe dropped DirectX support with version 10.1, but many pros I know haven't updated past that iteration.
I always call my clients to find out what type of PDF reader they're using, and which OS platform and printer platform is in their office - in 20+ years of drafting, designing, and managing, nobody's asked me those questions - and I've never had a complaint about my work...
</rant>
One fix for the spinning beachball in Preview that's worked for me:
Back up all data. Quit Preview if it's running.
Hold down the option key and select Go>Library from the Finder Menu Bar. From the Library folder, (if they exist) delete the following items:
- Containers>com.apple.Preview (folder)
- Group Containers>com.apple.Preview (folder)
- Preferences>com.apple.Preview.LSSharedFileList.plist (file)
- Preferences>com.apple.Preview.SandboxedPersistentURLs.LSSharedFileList.plist (file)
- Saved Application State>com.apple.Preview.savedState (folder)
Two decent PDF viewers: Google Chrome, and LibreOffice Draw (also, a decent PDF editor is built into Draw).
10.10.3 definitely does not fix the problems I was having - garbled display, beach balling, poor performance, UI locks affecting other apps...
I downgraded to Mavericks for a while because of this. Thankfully, someone on the apple forums figured out that you can just copy Mavericks' pdfkit over to Yosemite. I haven't run into any issues so far with this approach.
For reference, you need to replace
with the 2.9.2 version.
I downgraded to Mavericks for a while because of this. Thankfully, someone on the apple forums figured out that you can just copy Mavericks' pdfkit over to Yosemite. I haven't run into any issues so far with this approach.
For reference, you need to replace
Code:
/System/Library/Frameworks/Quartz.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/PDFKit.framework
I'm not sure what issues you guys have, but it works like a champ in 10.10.3 here, and never had a problem with it either ...go figure.
I made a short video so others can see I'm not trolling...
Click here for 1:12s of buttery smooth scrolling .mov file - image quality has lost something in the transfer, as the linked Vid doesn't look as crisp\sharp as the original on my retina, the text suffers horribly, but that's down to the host, not Preview.