Preview crashes while combining PDFs

[NewUsername]

I tried to combine a bunch of PDFs in Preview on my M1 Mac. When I try to save the combined PDF with CMD+S, Preview crashes. This seems to happen very consistently.

Combining two PDFs: no problem. But 5 or 10: it crashes.

I used to combine hundreds of PDFs on my Intel Mac and I never had issues.

Could someone try to see if they have the same issue?

 

[JohnnyGo]

File a bug report with Apple ASAP

 

[NewUsername]

File a bug report with Apple ASAP

I did.

While saving the file produces a crash, printing to PDF still seems to work fine. I don't see any difference between the two, so at least there is a workaround.

 

[4sallypat]

Anyone using Adobe Acrobat Pro installed on their M1 ???

 

[JamesPTownsend]

I have the same problem, sent dozens of reports to Apple every time preview crashes, yesterday I spent 4 hours online & on phone with Apple support & the problem is unresolved. Combined 2 pdf's 20 minutes ago & the beach ball is still spinning. Yesterday I was able to put 2 pdf's on a USB walk to the 9 year old mini combine & save the document whilst on the new M1 preview had crashed. Cant run a business with the M1 going to revert to 9 year old i7.

 

[NewUsername]

I have the same problem, sent dozens of reports to Apple every time preview crashes, yesterday I spent 4 hours online & on phone with Apple support & the problem is unresolved. Combined 2 pdf's 20 minutes ago & the beach ball is still spinning. Yesterday I was able to put 2 pdf's on a USB walk to the 9 year old mini combine & save the document whilst on the new M1 preview had crashed. Cant run a business with the M1 going to revert to 9 year old i7.

We’re now at macOS Monterey and unfortunately, nothing has improved. Still the same crash, still sending bug reports every time.

The problem exists on Intel Macs as well, so it seems to be a bug introduced in Big Sur for both Intel and ARM.

(If an admin sees this, you can move the thread to the macOS forum.)

 

[NewUsername]

Updated to macOS 12.1, bug is still there…

 

[NewUsername]

Bug still there in macOS 12.2.

 

[jowmumma]

Still here July 2022 .. beach balling for 20 mins (tbf combining 1000 pages) - will file report when it crashes. No fan spin up and CPU is only at like 12% soo...

Edit: macOS 12.4

 

[BanditoB]

Perhaps macOS Monterey 12.5, released today, addresses the issue. It's worth a shot.

 

[solouki]

If you are still having troubles, and don't mind using the commandline, then I've found "pdfcpu" (Homebrew) to be stable and I've personally combined 110 PDFs into a single PDF with it. In addition, "pdfcpu" also implements almost all of the possible features of PDF files. Good luck.

 

[Slartibart]

or you use e.g. ghostscript in the terminal:

gs -q -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=merged.pdf source1.pdf source2.pdf source3.pdf

 

[solouki]

or you use e.g. ghostscript in the terminal:

gs -q -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=merged.pdf source1.pdf source2.pdf source3.pdf

Absolutely! Good suggestion.

I like to use "pdfcpu" instead of "gs" because it allows all PDF parameters to be altered by a commandline command, such as the user passphrase, owner passphrase, printing restrictions, etc. Does ghostscript all for all of the PDF parameters to be manipulated?