I recently experienced the issue of form filled out in Preview simply did not stay filled when shared. Super broken and really problematic as it was a form I REALLY needed to have filled out properly and usable by recipient.
So, my “net net” here is that there really isn’t any reliable PDF software for the Mac other than Adobe? Seems super crazy but god knows possible. I wonder…
Why Smile sold PDFPen;
Who Nitro are and why they bought it;
Why don’t they support a product they just bought?
Despite the PDFKit problems, I still find Skim to be my best friend in regards to PDF documents unless I am working with shared forms.
This very topic of PDF software was discussed extensively on the MacInTouch forums, but sadly that info is now lost (or at least, unavailable).
I would ask the question why Apple has refused to update their PDFKit engine to a more current standard and/or correct the shared PDF form issues that have plagued users for over a decade. But all you have to do is look at how Apple responds–or rather, does not respond–to a growing list of issues and bugs spanning years. Then look at where Apple’s priorities are and it becomes clear.
Forced/leveraged hardware upgrades and App Store fees.
Very unfortunate from the company that used to stand for choice, inclusion and support of standards.
This is a very good question. I’m assuming they might not have acquired anyone from Smile’s Help team. But they have had enough time to build a Help team for their new acquisition. If they haven’t, they need to do so.
Did the MacInTouch forums die a premature death? No, it wasn’t off topic and I fundamentally agree but not making PDF forms workable is insane; I did not realize the problem was of such longstanding.
I JUST shared an edited-in-Preview form for a very necessary purpose – I’m waiting for the other form to drop tomorrow morning! Will report back.
This particular form seemed to work on the receiving end, happily. This particular one was a scan and I interacted/edited with the Markup Toolbar, text boxes, saved signatures.
PSA: The form(s) that I had REAL trouble with were more ‘formal’ (!), as in long, detailed, tab between fields and almost certainly created with Acrobat Pro. I filled out, saved, shared and NONE of the edits stuck and/or the form would not stay “flattened” and could be edited by the recipient which, for a legal document, was particularly unacceptable. Be careful if you need to share anything you edit in Preview of this nature if it is important: double check with the recipient.
The heavy form problems you describe sound like classic PDFKit issues. That being said, the “flattenting” of layers you mentioned is something that happens with Acrobat itself.
I described an anomaly in the MacInTouch forums about an Acrobat redaction issue back in 2020. Here is the summary from my notes:
Acrobat Pro DC 2020.009.20074 (macOS 10.13.6)
open PDF bill downloaded directly from Medical web site
blue info box at top of document:
“This file claims compliance with the PDF/A standard and has been opened read-only to prevent modification.”
click Enable Editing
make any Redaction (either highlight and choose Redact, or click Redact tool icon and then highlight or create box around area to obscure.)
on Apply Redaction, any added info on page 1 (“monthly statement”, page number, your info, acct summary, messages, amt. due, address) is whited out regardless of Sanitize choice.
if opened in Preview first, and re-saved (ie. delete last page), then opened in Acrobat Pro DC and repeat same steps above, Redaction works and nothing else is removed.
Behavior demonstrates “layers” in PDF bill (ie. template with graphics is separate from patient text data) that are “flattened” into a single layer after save in Preview app. Why Acrobat Pro cannot isolate selected areas only is unknown.
…
Sadly, yes. I believe operating costs and maintenance time were just some of the reasons. I am sad we lost all the useful discussions and tech info. Ric is still keeping the main Mac blog/news updates going for now.
The article I wrote about the acquisition in July 2021 will explain 1 and 2, but 3 is troubling. I’ve pinged the guy I talked to at Nitro about the complaints here and other places, but haven’t gotten a response, which is depressing.
Super interesting and rationally parsed, as usual. I was so blown away when my edits with Preview of a “very formal” (Merrill Lynch!) PDF form just simply would not work. My first experience with that degree of PDF brokenness.
FYI, from the looks of things they manage support via the forums, as the support staff are active in there for issues both personal and regarding general app operation.
Thanks for the many comments and answers. I gave Howard Oakley’s site a good read-through last week (knowledgable chap). And the answers, as ever, are perplexing for average users, to say the least!
Howard’s own basic editor/viewer app “Podofyllin” sounds like an interesting option.†
I haven’t tried it yet though, so YMMV. The link below also has the PDF articles he has done for perusal as a simple list:
So I’m experimenting with PDFKit in another free tool, Podofyllin. To save you reaching for Wikipedia, podophyllin is a pretty toxic resin which is extracted from the roots of the mandrake plant (a favourite in alchemy and witchcraft) and is sometimes used to remove warts. It also happens to contain the letters P, D and F in order. [source]
Quick summation…
So it seems there is basically no clear answer here on best app usage. I suppose things are open to constant change with each app update, contributing to making such hard-and-fast determinations difficult anyway, along with each user’s individual needs & usage.
The things I’ve heard here and elsewhere seem to be:
Forms: use Acrobat Reader (or Pro, if you have it).
Reader is free at least, and is likely to give the best results when sharing with third parties; they’re most likely to receive form additions/edits intact.
Full-featured: Acrobat Pro is likely the only (almost) completely reliable software.
If you can afford the ~$180/yr price, or have it as part of a wider Adobe subscription, then use this as much as possible to avoid most faults. However, still no guarantees remain if any other parties the doc is shared with are using other software, and you’re exchanging said doc back & forth between you.
Basic stuff: use Preview.
Preview is obviously free and included (at least on macOS, if not on iOS), so is OK for basic personal doc use like moving pages around in-doc/between docs, and maybe OK for markups provided they are typically not re-edited again (or at least not often), depending on what markup has been used. More complex stuff is more likely to have problems with, especially on later re-edits.
Full-featured (non-Adobe): Skim, PDF Expert, PDFpen Pro, Nuance, et al.
Other well-known apps can and often do decent jobs of dealing with edits and markup. But given the different ways each app goes about editing depending on the underlying engine (or version of engine, if they’ve also incorporated additional code to improve/fix bugs in their engine of choice!), they simply may or may not prove effective. So it’s open season, with only trial and error being fruitful.
Not exactly a great state of affairs to be in, if you ask me. But this is not exactly unheard of is it. Other so-called open/semi-open formats like .docx et al. often have the same issues don’t they, where the original format owner (eg. Microsoft) still typically has the most reliable enduring authoring & editing tools. So this comes as no real surprise I guess.
@Pavlis - Well spotted!
In fact they have many apps that come-up in results when searching “PDF” here:
EDIT 1: Is the name “PDFpen” being replaced with “Nitro PDF”, now Nitro own them?
At websites: https://pdfpen.com & https://www.gonitro.com & Mac App Store (essentials / pro):
The only products available for sale for Mac usage are PDF Pro Essentials 13 aka Nitro PDF Pro Essentials ($130) and PDF Pro 13 aka Nitro PDF Pro ($180, while Windows users get it for 20% off at only $144! ).
At Setapp:
The two available are branded still as PDFpen (essentials), but the new name Nitro PDF Pro (pro).
It’s weird the PDFpen name remains only on Setapp, but just for the standard Essentials version. Maybe it’s a brand recognition thing or something.
(also, the website’s $130/180 prices also seem to be higher than I remember, but I could be wrong.)
Setapp looks more & more effective in pricing terms, given these are just two apps of 230+ available!
EDIT 2: the iOS app store also has a iPhone+iPad version of Nitro PDF Pro for $10.
The one problem is that the interface is close to unusable (for me at least). I used to always have a copy of Reader installed, but it got so clunky I removed it. Then a couple of years ago I installed it again to deal with a form and struggled to use it at all. Deleted it and filled out the form on the web instead. It would take an extreme circumstance for me to try Reader again after my last experience. Such a shame Adobe has ruined it.
I use Preview markup extensively (in Catalina). I’m definitely going to try your tip!
One thing that I have noticed is, especially where multiple pages are involved, markups and even simple highlighting can just disappear. So I’ve gotten in the habit of re-PDFing after I finish marking up each page which essentially flattens it. Then the changes don’t go away. I’m also pretty sure that will make it more reliably readable on other systems, whereas a simple marked up page without re-PDFing might display unreliably on a Windows system.
In preview, I take my edited PDF, issue a print command, and instead of printing I save it as a PDF. I almost never use the “file/export as PDF” command.
A marked-up PDF has layers—the base original layer, and then your additions like text fields, squares, circles, arrows, etc. You’ll notice that after re-PDFing this items are no longer editable anymore – hence flattening, it’s all one layer, smooshed together. Hence the mark up items are not prone to vanishing unexpectedly.
Re: Option-selecting of OCR’ed pdf in Preview
Option-selecting in Preview usually works but the result depends on the pdf. If you have an OCR’ed text you can Option-select a block of text but the rows may be garbled. Happens to me all the time. Not sure if that’s an OCR problem or a Preview problem.
Wow. You are right. TextSniper is super cool. So glad you and Peter suggested it. Just got it from the Apple Store and it is now one of my favorite go to apps for so many. things.! Thank you both.
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