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User profile for user: jlc2005
jlc2005 Author
User level: Level 1
8 points

PDF files all saving as Preview files - why has this changed?

Every time I save or create a PDF file - even if it's a word document, it now saves as a preview file with the preview icon rather than the PDF icon. I can not figure out how to stop this from happening. I have tried 'open with' and now it converts the file to a word document, which is often distorted and scrambled/unreadable, so that is not reliable, and when I need to send/attach a file to someone it requires adobe to open. Everyone of my PDF files now have the preview icon. What has changed? This is definitely not the way it's always been. I'm not exactly sure when the change happened but it's been a couple of months. Can I go back to the 'old way' of saving PDF's?

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 13.4

Posted on Aug 29, 2023 2:25 PM

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User profile for user: jlc2005
jlc2005 Author
User level: Level 1
8 points

Posted on Aug 30, 2023 2:21 PM

Sorry - I must not be explaining it incorrectly. When I save a document - using 'save as' and I choose PDF it saves it as a Preview file. When I type and save a document on my work PC, it still saves as it always has so it appears to be specific to my MacBook. It's definitely different then how 'save as' has worked in the past when I chose PDF. The red icon above was on all of my files that I saved as a PDF. Now everything has changed to the Preview icon for every file. I guess I'm not able to save in the same way I used to be able and now PDF's I save and send require Adobe to be opened. This is only problematic when the receiver doesn't have Adobe - Apologies if I'm not explaining the issue clearly or perhaps not using the correct terminology.

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User profile for user: jlc2005
jlc2005 Author
User level: Level 1
8 points

Aug 30, 2023 2:21 PM in response to KiltedTim

Sorry - I must not be explaining it incorrectly. When I save a document - using 'save as' and I choose PDF it saves it as a Preview file. When I type and save a document on my work PC, it still saves as it always has so it appears to be specific to my MacBook. It's definitely different then how 'save as' has worked in the past when I chose PDF. The red icon above was on all of my files that I saved as a PDF. Now everything has changed to the Preview icon for every file. I guess I'm not able to save in the same way I used to be able and now PDF's I save and send require Adobe to be opened. This is only problematic when the receiver doesn't have Adobe - Apologies if I'm not explaining the issue clearly or perhaps not using the correct terminology.

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User profile for user: jlc2005
jlc2005 Author
User level: Level 1
8 points

Aug 30, 2023 12:30 PM in response to ku4hx

Thank you - I have already done that but many documents are not readable when I open with Word. The screenshot below is what happens with most of the documents when I open with Word instead of opening with Preview. I'm not sure why Preview became the default and I've changed the default to Word by going to 'Open With' and making the change, but now every document 'converts' to Word and in the conversion they get scrambled. I don't know if there was an update that made all PDF files 'Preview' rather than PDF's - the icon on each file is no longer the PDF icon, it's the 'Preview' icon in my list of files. They do convert to Word now, but like in the screenshot below, they are not readable. This is a file that is older, was a PDF and was readable - it now is a Preview that converts to a Word/PDF and is no longer able to be read.

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User profile for user: Servant of Cats
Servant of Cats
User level: Level 6
16,048 points

Aug 30, 2023 3:22 PM in response to jlc2005

You say that your PDF files used to have "the red icon" and that you opened them in Word, but that now they have the Preview icon, and they "require Adobe to be opened."


Preview and Adobe Acrobat Reader are PDF readers. Generally, you wouldn't use Word to read PDF files. Recent versions of Word might open .PDF files, but they also might make a mess of graphic elements in them. You would use Word to generate "throwaway" PDF files ("electronic printouts") from editable DOCX documents.


Adobe – Learn how to open a PDF in Word


"Keep in mind, though, that whichever method you use, the conversion from a PDF to Word format works best with text-based files. Word will attempt to match the original font, layout, and other specifications as closely as possible, but sometimes graphics can become skewed or even uneditable in the new document."


By the way, that red icon is an Adobe icon associated with Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Acrobat Reader.

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PDF files all saving as Preview files - why has this changed?

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