Update 1/23/2017: The Sierra 10.12.3 Update seems to have fixed the issue. If you haven’t already, it’s highly suggested that you update.
If you have updated to macOS Sierra 10.12.2 and use Preview to manipulate scanned PDFs, watch out. There seems to be a bug and the OCR text layer can disappear. I’ve replicated this issue on documents scanned with the Fujitsu ScanSnap and the Doxie Q so far.
Announced at WWDC 2017 in July, the long-awaited macOS High Sierra is now available for the public! It means all Mac devices that are compatible can download and install this version of macOS. (6) See support page for more information about Graphics card and Mac compatiblity. (7) The RX560 is not yet compatible with macOS High Sierra. See support page for more information. The Best Replacement of Foxit Reader for Mac(macOS 10.13 High Sierra Compatible) PDF (Portable Data Format) is a prefer file format for document transfer and viewing. To open and view a PDF, you might try Foxit PDF editor (or Foxit Reader).
In the comments to my blog post about ScanSnap on Sierra, awesome DocumentSnap reader Alex writes this:
Since updating to macOS 10.12.2 I have found that Preview destroys the OCR layer of PDFs scanned and OCR’d with the latest ScanSnap Manager software if you make any sort of edit with Preview (e.g. deleting or reordering pages). After editing and saving with Preview, the PDF is no longer searchable and text is not selectable. Managed to replicate the problem on another Mac running 10.12.2. Doesn’t seem to affect PDFs scanned and OCR’d with other scanners or applications. Just wanted to warn everyone to perhaps wait before updating, and check that they haven’t unwittingly destroyed their OCR if they have already updated.
This was confirmed in the comments by reader Jakub.
Since I hadn’t yet upgraded to 10.12.2, I decided to test with scans before and after upgrading, and since I had a Doxie Q sitting on my desk, I tested with that as well to see if it was a ScanSnap thing. I also tested Preview on a machine with 10.12.1 and a machine with El Capitan.
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All ScanSnap scans were done with a ScanSnap iX500 using ScanSnap Manager 6.3 L60. All Doxie scans were done with a Doxie Q exported using Doxie software 2.9.1 (1864).
For the test, I scanned documents on Sierra 10.12.1 and 10.12.2, checked that the PDF was OCRed properly, then deleted a page, saved, and re-opened and checked the text again. Here are the results:
- Scanned with ScanSnap on 10.12.1 & edited Sierra 10.12.1: OK
- Scannedwith ScanSnap on 10.12.1 & edited Sierra 10.12.2: GONE
- Scanned with ScanSnap on 10.12.1 & edited El Capitan: OK
- Scanned with ScanSnap on 10.12.2 & edited Sierra 10.12.1: OK
- Scanned with ScanSnap on 10.12.2 & edited Sierra 10.12.2: GONE
- Scanned with ScanSnap on 10.12.2 & edited El Capitan: OK
- Scanned with Doxie Q on 10.12.1 & edited Sierra 10.12.1: OK
- Scanned with Doxie Q on 10.12.2 & edited Sierra 10.12.2 : GONE
As you can see, it seems to be something to do with Preview on macOS Sierra 10.12.2. Alex said that he didn’t see the issue with other scanners, but I ran into it with both ScanSnap and Doxie. Both of those scanners use ABBYY for OCR, so that may be relevant.
If you’ve upgraded to 10.12.2 (or see this issue on another platform!), please let us know in the comments if you see the same thing. I’ll update if a fix/workaround appears.
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Jul 18,2019 • Filed to: Mac Tutorials
PDF is a prefer file format for document transfer and viewing. To open and view a PDF, you might try Foxit PDF Reader. However, Foxit Reader is simply a PDF reader, which costs you $84.15 but only allows you to view, print and fill PDF. So if you want a better PDF viewing ans reading experience with PDF editing, markup, and comment function, a Foxit PDF Reader alternative for Mac users is needed.
The Best Foxit Reader for Mac Alternative
A new alternative of the Foxit PDF Editor for Mac is PDFelement Pro. It is an easy-to-use PDF editor with a Word-processor feel, and more importantly cheaper than Foxit PDF Editor. This PDF program can open and view PDF easily. Also, it can help you to edit PDF with various editing tools feeling somewhat like a normal word processing program. Just try it out.
Step 1. Import PDF to Foxit Reader Mac
Download and install the Foxit Reader for Mac alternative. Launch the program and click the 'Open File' to select the PDF file you need and import it to the program.
Step 2. View and Read PDF
After importing the PDF to the program, you can view your PDF file on the program directly. Click 'View', there are several view modes to choose: 'Single Page view', 'Enable Scrolling', 'Two Page View', 'Two Page Scrolling'.
Step 3. Edit Text in a PDF Document
You can change the text within the Foxit Reader for Mac Alternative without having to convert between formats. To edit texts, hit the 'Text' button on the toolbar and then click on any text that you want to edit on the PDF page. You can replace, delete and insert text as you like. While editing, highlight texts and change font style, font size, color, etc. Also, you can click the 'Add Text' button to insert text anywhere you want.
Step 4. Edit Images and Graphics on Mac
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On the right toolbar, select 'Image' and then you can browse to the location of the image you want to insert. By clicking on the target image, you can get more image editing options like replace, extract, crop. Besides editing texts and images, this Foxit Reader for Mac Alternative even comes with a powerful conversion feature and allows you to convert PDF to all regular text and image formats so you can reuse the PDF content effortlessly.