Filed under: Software
Preview.app not to be trusted?
Came across an interesting bug report over at MacInTouch. A form that shows a price of $40 in Acrobat Reader v4.x and v7.x, but shows a price of $35 in Preview. Rob Currie says... "I noticed this as I first viewed the form using OS 8.6, and when Abode Reader 4.9 opened the same pdf, I saw it flip from $35 to $40. Further investigation showed that the PDF file had listed $35 as the price when first created but had been changed to $40 by adding a text box with the new price to cover the old price. Adobe Reader 7 shows the alteration correctly, but Preview 2.1 ignores it."
I can't remember the last time I opened Preview without it being by accident. It could have been missing from the Tiger installer and I never would've noticed. I have always found it unbearably slow and of very limited use. This report just reinforces my decision to forget it even exists.
How many of you use Preview regularly? Mind telling me why?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
tj said 4:19PM on 6-16-2005
I use preview. I don't see a reason why not. I've never run into any problems with it and it run exceptionally quick on my 867mhz TiBook.
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danielcole said 6:05PM on 6-25-2005
It's handy for quickly opening a picture, instead of having to wait for iPhoto to load.
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Laurie said 4:19PM on 6-16-2005
iPhoto? Well, yeah, that would be overkill for just viewing a single pic :) But For quick viewing, I find QuickImageCM to be a stronger choice than Preview - and it is also free. 99% of all my images open in GraphicConverter, however, since I tend to fall back on double-clicking. Obviously not everyone wants to use a $35 app for view-only when they have Preview fore free, but there are so many other options that are better and faster than Preview.
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Rob Weychert said 5:01PM on 9-07-2005
I use Preview all the time. Basically, iPhoto blows. Its limited preferences don't allow me to use it the way I want, and I hate the way it junks up my hard drive, so I can't be bothered to use it. If I want to quickly take a look at an image or handful of images, opening them in Preview works quite well and saves me the trouble of opening Photoshop or needlessly dumping them into iPhoto's Library (only to be manually removed moments later).
However, I haven't upgraded to Tiger yet, and I hear it has a slideshow preference for images of folders, which sounds pretty handy and could cut down on my Preview usage.
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Preview.app said 4:19PM on 6-16-2005
It is a lot faster and more versatile than Acrobat Reader. The search in large PDF documents works great.
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Oli said 4:19PM on 6-16-2005
Erm, sorry, but... are you crazy? Preview is slow?? Have you ever used this thing they call Adobe Reader?? Preview is amazingly fast on my PowerMac at work and here on my iBook.
Adobe Reader: 1.. 2.. 3.. 4.. yawn 7.. aw, forgetit, Force quit
Preview: 1 bounce
Adobe Reader: go to next page, wait, wait, there it is!
Preview: you mean I can scroll through a PDF?? Amazing...
I use Preview all the time, and you should really consider giving it another try. It has a beautiful presentation mode, and there are possibly more menu options on how to display a PDF than even Acrobat has. It even supports forms.
The only thing that's bugging me: when I export a PDF directly from Photoshop and I forget to set the right options Preview will not show any text-layers (possibly related to the problem described in the article). I believe that's a PDF version thing, something to do with how Photoshop embeds fonts. Solution is to export vector data (note: this only applies to Photoshop, all other Adobe apps behave fine in this regard)
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Dmitry Chestnykh said 5:26PM on 12-15-2005
I use Preview for everything - I find this app very fast for PDF viewing.
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Brett said 4:19PM on 6-16-2005
I have Acrobat 7 Pro, so I prefer preview for non-critical PDFs so I don't have to wait for Pro to launch. I have the same lazy double-clicking habit too, which is another reason for the occasional use of Preview, it actually seems pretty quick for me.
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janeiro said 4:19PM on 6-16-2005
i used to have to use Acrobat to view PDFs created by Crystal Reports by Carlson Wagonlit travel agency. Preview 2.x seems to have fixed that though.
My only issue with Preview is i often find it difficult for a picture to display at its native size. Maybe i'm just dumb.
in general i don't like using apps that aren't standard on the system, because if i have to use another person's system, that app might not be there. my main exception being text editors (though vi or vim are fine), i'd rather be using SubEthaEdit.
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David Wilson said 10:39AM on 7-13-2005
I use Preview all off the time. I find it impressively fast after coming from Acrobat Reader. I don't see how you can say it is slow, maybe something is not right there?
Anyway, it's straightforward, it's fast and it gets the job done.
Simple as.
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matt said 9:31AM on 6-23-2005
the tiger version of preview is amazingly faster than the panther one. the printing somehow seems improved, too. and, like everyone else has said, adobe's reader is a monstrosity that takes ages to open. so, at this point, i'm the exact opposite: i think i'd be quite happy deleting reader, so long as i had preview.
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Matt said 4:19PM on 6-16-2005
I'm going to have to agree with Oli here. Preview is incomparably faster than Acrobat, either Reader or Pro. And the search function is fantastic. I've never had a complaint. Definitely give it a try again if you think it's slow. And try a race between Acrobat and Preview.
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Laurie said 4:19PM on 6-16-2005
Perhaps the problem is that I very very very very rarely need to just /look/ at a PDF or an image. I generally need to edit or resize or crop or copy selections from, etc... which makes Preview pretty useless to me. All of you who like Preview strictly as a viewer, give QuickImageCM and PDFViewCM a try: http://www.pixture.com/macosx.php (not sure if they are Tiger compatible yet and am not on my Tiger boot right now)
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AG said 4:19PM on 6-16-2005
I really don't see the need to download a freeware when there is a built in app that will do the exact same thing. HD clutter wha?
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Callum said 4:19PM on 6-16-2005
This is the only place Xp wins over apple - its images, I want a quick resizable non-pixely preview... with Preview ya just don't get it - try opening an image bigger than say 400px x 400px and click "actual size" - notice anything?! why does it do that, is that print size or taking dpi into account? I don't care!
Phew, sorry Tiger rocks - but Preview needs to GO!
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Oli said 4:19PM on 6-16-2005
@Callum:
Well, then just go to Preview's preferences and switch off the "respect dpi" option...
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chris McDowell said 4:19PM on 6-16-2005
I dont liked 3rd party apps alot if apple already has something. For example Preview. I would never go and download some freeware app and not have it near as integrated with the os. it is also installed by default and if I ever need to backup it is less stuff to worry about redownloading or getting off from the backup. I do use transmit though because my sftp/ftp in the os wasnt quite what I liked and would not connect to my xbox.
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Visual Snack said 4:19PM on 6-16-2005
I have no problems with Preview. AND, with the release of Tiger, Preview now supports the creation and viewing of annotations, something I'd normally have to wait (and wait and wait) for Adobe Pro or Reader to boot up and see. (I've been getting a lot of annotated PDFs from clients lately.)
- rick
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Jeff Kirk said 4:19PM on 6-16-2005
I'm a graphic artist and use Preview as my default app for opening jpegs.
It's 10x faster than having to launch Photoshop all the time!
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benny said 3:16PM on 9-14-2005
The app is multipurpose and reliable.
Lets see Adobe Acrobat open .tiff ... or even .jpeg files without an egregiously slow startup phase.
Worldpeace,
Ben
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