Disable Tabs in Preview Pt 2???

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Level 1

4 points

Disable Tabs in Preview Pt 2???

I have the same issue as DBowie except I am on Mohave 10.14.6. When I would double click on PDF files it would open in separate windows but now it opens up as a tab. I read all the replies and tried them but none of them worked. It didn't seem like DBowie got his issue resolved. Does anyone know how to resolve this?

DBowie THREAD:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8182056

ORIGINAL ISSUE from DBOWIE:

Since upgrading to High Sierra, double-clicking on a PDF opens that PDF in Preview as a new tab in the same window as an already-opened PDF. (And, annoyingly, it opens the new PDF without giving it focus, but that's mostly beside the point for this question.)

I would like to go back to the way Preview previously worked, where double-clicking a PDF opened it in its own Preview window. However, while I've been able to find plenty of information online about how to get Preview documents to open in tabs in one window, I've found no information that worked to get PDFs to open in separate windows. (I know that I can use Window>>Move Tab to New Window, but that's extra mouse clicks, and when I'm using several PDFs at once it's a lot of clicking that just slows me down.)

Based on things I found online for different but related issues, I've already tried going into Preview's preferences>>images and switching "When opening files" to "Open each file in its own window", and going to the Dock panel in System Preferences and changing "Prefer tabs when opening documents" to "Manually". Neither of these changed anything.

So: Is there any way to open PDFs in separate windows, or am I stuck with this new behavior?

Posted on Aug 13, 2021 7:45 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

D.I. Johnson

Level 7

23,279 points

Aug 13, 2021 9:02 PM in response to ninjakang

Hello, ninjakang.

I have no way to test in Mojave, but I can tell you that the behavior you hope to get back is present in Catalina.

I understand if you don't wish to or cannot upgrade to Catalina, so this is just an fyi comment.

I don't know if this issue exists in all versions of Mojave or if the software in your Mac is broken, but you might see if the problem still happens in Safe mode (hold the shift key down at startup). It can take much longer to safe boot (10 min) so be patient.

How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support

Safe mode forces the OS to clear certain caches and logs and do other miscellaneous housekeeping. It's non-destructive to user data so is safe to do. Very often certain weird software behavior is corrected by simply logging in this way as a troubleshooting method. When you're in safe boot, the machine will not be at its best performance, especially with graphics, but that's normal.

Does the problem persist while in Safe mode?

Exit safe mode by restarting your Mac normally and re-evaluate the issue again.

If the problem is still unresolved, please return here and post a reply and we’ll see what else we can come up with for help.Have you tries

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Answer 2

BDAqua

Level 10

244,817 points

Aug 14, 2021 11:27 AM in response to ninjakang

Wowzer, had to keep rereading this, I\m running 10.14.6/ Mojave & it is the exact opposite here, Mine open in separate Windows & cannot be made to open in Tabs, the preference settings make no difference, even quitting Preview & opening it again... all separate windows!

???

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