You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Unable to drag PDF thumbnails into keynote is HUGE PROBLEM

In the latest update for keynote, the functionality of being able to drag PDF thumbnails into a Keynote document was removed.


I cannot begin the describe the sheer frustration, ridiculous lack of productivity and horrendous user experience this has caused. While I am a HUGE fan of Keynote, this has to be the worst redaction of a feature that could be possible. Is anyone from Apple able to explain "why"?


Posted on Aug 27, 2019 9:50 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Sep 2, 2019 7:24 AM

Gary,


On macOS Mojave 10.14.6 (18G95), if one opens a single-page, or multi-page PDF in Preview, and attempts to drag a selected PDF page thumbnail onto Keynote v9.1, it will fail — just as it does with Pages v8.1 with the following sheet descending in Keynote:


I have tried this with several different PDF in Preview, and the result is always the same. The solution is to copy the PDF thumbnail in Preview to the clipboard, and then in Keynote v9.1, simply perform a Paste operation. Alternatively, one must drag the thumbnail image to the Desktop, and subsequently drag and drop from the Desktop back into Keynote v9.1.


The same reproducible issue (and remedies) exists with drag/drop of Preview PDF thumbnails onto Keynote v9.1 in macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 (17G8030).


The above description also applies to Keynote v9.0 and Pages v8.0.


Ironically, though also based on Apple's PDFKit framework, the open source Skim PDF reader permits successful drag and drop of PDF thumbnails into Keynote v9.* and Pages v8.*.

6 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Sep 2, 2019 7:24 AM in response to Gary Scotland

Gary,


On macOS Mojave 10.14.6 (18G95), if one opens a single-page, or multi-page PDF in Preview, and attempts to drag a selected PDF page thumbnail onto Keynote v9.1, it will fail — just as it does with Pages v8.1 with the following sheet descending in Keynote:


I have tried this with several different PDF in Preview, and the result is always the same. The solution is to copy the PDF thumbnail in Preview to the clipboard, and then in Keynote v9.1, simply perform a Paste operation. Alternatively, one must drag the thumbnail image to the Desktop, and subsequently drag and drop from the Desktop back into Keynote v9.1.


The same reproducible issue (and remedies) exists with drag/drop of Preview PDF thumbnails onto Keynote v9.1 in macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 (17G8030).


The above description also applies to Keynote v9.0 and Pages v8.0.


Ironically, though also based on Apple's PDFKit framework, the open source Skim PDF reader permits successful drag and drop of PDF thumbnails into Keynote v9.* and Pages v8.*.

Aug 29, 2019 5:06 AM in response to AndrewMacFan

None of us here have this problem, 25 different Macs tested it yesterday, so this is a local issue on your Mac.


Try resetting Keynote to see if it clears a corruption.



complete all of the following steps in the order listed:

 

1.    ensure you have a current backup of all your user files saved to a separate drive

2.    close all applications

3.    uninstall Keynote; for this procedure to work, an application removal tool must be used, App Delete has a free trial and works for this procedure. It can be downloaded from the developer’s website here: App Delete

4.    empty the Trash (Finder > Empty Trash)

5.    restart the Mac (Apple Menu > Restart) Immediately after the Apple bong sound, press the shift key on the keyboard, release shift when the Apple icon appears. Start up will take longer than usual as the Mac is performing a software repair of the start up drive.

6.    After the Mac is fully powered up, restart the Mac normally:  Apple Menu > Restart

7.    reinstall Keynote from the Mac App Store in the Applications folder

8.    Restart the Mac again


Sep 2, 2019 12:44 PM in response to VikingOSX

On macOS Mojave 10.14.6 (18G95), if one opens a single-page, or multi-page PDF in Preview, and attempts to drag a selected PDF page thumbnail onto Keynote v9.1, it will fail


As I stated earlier, there are no issues dragging PDF individual PDF pages into Keynote either with ourselves or any of our clients, so this is not an issue for every Mac user.


We author interactive PDF products daily and have never encountered this.

Three Macs in a local Apple reseller I visited this afternoon, also worked without issue.


To be clear, PDF's should be dragged on to the Navigator in Keynote, not on to a slide, of cource PDF security settings must allow opening the PDF.



Sep 2, 2019 3:39 PM in response to Gary Scotland

Gary,


What can I say? I have three Macs here, two of which were clean installs and updates of Mojave and High Sierra. The Pages and Keynote applications are v8.1 and v9.1 respectively, and the drag and drop issue from Preview existed with prior point versions as well. The problem does not exist with Preview and Pages v5.6.2/Keynote v6.6.2 in El Capitan 10.11.6.


Others have been reporting the drag and drop issue from Preview into Pages (unsure of Keynote) on High Sierra and Mojave communities, so it is happening — even if not to you, and your customer installations. It makes no difference if the target document already exists, or has not been saved yet on the local drive.

Sep 6, 2019 5:06 AM in response to VikingOSX

I can only be grateful that I don't have some of the issues that others report here in the discussions, or I'd be out of business.


It's not unusual for users to have issues with Keynote that most other users have no problems with.

My introduction to the discussions many years ago was to report that Keynote would not launch on one of our Macs, someone suggested removing a specific app I had installed, it cured the problem right away.


I don't use Pages so can't comment on that.

Unable to drag PDF thumbnails into keynote is HUGE PROBLEM

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.