Preview shows only blank pages

[Martin81]

Since upgrading to 10.12.4 I have this issue with preview. Sometimes preview just shows blank (white) pages. Sometimes the page preview on the left side shows blanks, but the page is displayed correctly. Sometimes both show just blanks. With some PDF's it work as normal.
Printing preview works correctly.

This morning I downloaded Acrobat Reader, but I don't like it. It definitely is just a stopgap.

What should I do next? Just wait for the next macOS update? Contact Apple?

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

Try reinstalling the 10.12.4 combo update. 10.12.4 had a lot of PDFKit bugs fixed (Fixed some I was suffering from, yay!), but it is possible that they also included new bugs, as Apple tend to do these days, whenever they update something.

 

[Martin81]

Maybe it's not macOS's fault at all. Turns out that many PDF's are displayed correctly. At first I thought it might be related to file size or number of pages but there was no real pattern. However PDF's from one particular university institute show that problem pretty consistently if not all the time.

We will see what the next update of macOS will do.

 

[amartinez1660]

I know it's old but that's why it's great to not close threads (like Reddit does), I just managed to find a solution and had passed by this very same thread before. Leaving a potential solution for some:

If your issue is that text doesn't show when using the quick look preview of a pdf (the one that shows documents by pressing spacebar on a selected file no matter where in the system: emails, file browser, etc), make sure to check if there's anything weird on your 'Font Book'. Open that, go to all fonts, select them all, make sure to click on 'Download' if the option appears on the right side and it could also say that there are duplicates. I did it all in one shot but I think the duplicate fonts warning is what might have been the culprit.

Summary:

1. Open Font Book
2. Go to all fonts and select them all
3. Click Download if that option visibly appears on the UI (around the top right of the font book frame). Wait for it to finish
4. Resolve Duplicates (bottom right of the window frame). I chose the "resolve automatically" option.

This fixed it for me.
Hope it helps.