I have just got my hands on a Snow Leopard machine, and I can't work out what on earth you are complaining about. I created a couple of simple PDFs and managed to combine them, delete some pages, and save the result as a new, self-contained PDF. I never did this is Leopard so I don't know what's changed, but the process seemed to me to be totally intuitive. I didn't have to experiment, it worked as I expected it to first time.
I took a screen capture of the process which can be seen here (right-click and download to view)
You didn't read the thread close enough. Watch my screen video here and you will see the difference. It works great when your original PDF has more than one page in it. If there is only one page, then there is a problem.
I'm not slamming Apple. I owned an original Mac and have had them ever since.
That said, I think Preview has bugs. Neither of the workflows you outline work for me. Again, they APPEAR to sometimes, but changes are not saved after closing and reopening.
Also, clicking on different thumbnails in the sidebar actually changes the title in the window bar of the same pdf document, as if (as a previous poster said) the thumbnails are not in fact pages in a single pdf but rather more like tabs in a browser. If so, and if that's not a bug, then I'd still like to know how to combine all the thumbnails into a single pdf that always has those pages in that particular order, not simply a browser-like window with a sidebar that holds individual pdf pages or collections of pages (yes, I understand how to expand and collapse the "notebook" style thumbnails).
All right--it appears that you can combine pdfs. Windows in Preview are in fact like a browser window with different tabs, except that each tab can have multiple pages. These multi-page "tabs" have the notebook-style icons. When you click on a notebook style icon (or a single page in the sidebar that is not part of another notebook) the title of the window bar changes. If you select "Save" or "Save As" at that point, you will save that particular notebook, including all changes you made to it, such as adding pages or deleting pages. You add or delete pages to a particular notebook by first making sure the notebook is expanded so that you can see all pages it contains, then dragging the new pages into it; you can put them wherever you want within the notebook. (It appears that if the notebook is not expanded, new pages you drag into the sidebar are treated as separate pdf documents.)
Took me a while to figure that out. Don't know whether it's counter-intuitive design or my advancing age.
All right--it appears that you can combine pdfs. Windows in Preview are in fact like a browser window with different tabs, except that each tab can have multiple pages. These multi-page "tabs" have the notebook-style icons. When you click on a notebook style icon (or a single page in the sidebar that is not part of another notebook) the title of the window bar changes. If you select "Save" or "Save As" at that point, you will save that particular notebook, including all changes you made to it, such as adding pages or deleting pages. You add or delete pages to a particular notebook by first making sure the notebook is expanded so that you can see all pages it contains, then dragging the new pages into it; you can put them wherever you want within the notebook. (It appears that if the notebook is not expanded, new pages you drag into the sidebar are treated as separate pdf documents.)
Took me a while to figure that out. Don't know whether it's counter-intuitive design or my advancing age.
Hope it helps.
But if you only have a single page in the file, the rules change and it doesn't work.
Does the new method save the resulting document with PDF chapters? It sounds like this may have been what Apple was after. I'd check myself if I had Snow Leopard.
Does the new method save the resulting document with PDF chapters? It sounds like this may have been what Apple was after. I'd check myself if I had Snow Leopard.
I'm not SURE what pdf chapters are, but if they're what I think they are, then no, that's not what this does. The "notebooks" in the side bar of a pdf window are actually separate files on the hard drive. The sidebar just provides a way to organize them for for viewing in the main window. I can see this being useful at times; you drag a whole bunch of separate pdfs on related subject in the sidebar and you can move around more quickly between them than going up to the window menu and selecting a separate file. At the same time, you might not really want all the docs to be part of a single pdf and this design lets you do that. You can probably search across all pdfs, even separate notebooks, in the sidebar, too, though I haven't tried that.
Each "notebook" is however a separate file, not merely a chapter (or chapter marker) in a single pdf file. At least that's how it appears.
I'm asking if the documents you drag into the sidebar and join into one PDF and save that way show as chapters in the sidebar after they are joined. PDFs with chapters show a table of contents in the sidebar. This is one thing you can do in Acrobat that could not be done in Preview, at least in Leopard. It would make sense for Apple to duplicate this feature with the new version of Preview.
You didn't read the thread close enough. Watch my screen video here and you will see the difference. It works great when your original PDF has more than one page in it. If there is only one page, then there is a problem.
No, it works fine if there's only one page in the first PDF. What you are not appreciating is that there are two different ways in which you can add a file to the sidebar in Preview. Either, you can append it to a file that's already there, or, you can add it as its own file.
Go back to the first video I posted; go to 00:20 and press play. Watch as "Letters.pdf" is dragged from Finder to Preview. At first, a blue horizontal bar appears under page 3 of the Numbers PDF. If I'd let go at that point, Letters.pdf would have been added as its own file, rather than being appended to Numbers.pdf. However, as I move Letters.pdf upwards, a rectangle with rounded corners appears around all the pages of Numbers.pdf; this is indicating that when Letters.pdf is released, it'll be appended to Numbers.pdf.
So, when you want to add pages to a single page PDF, you have to drag onto the page in the sidebar, not underneath the page, as you can see in this video (right-click and save to view)
I'm not slamming Apple. I owned an original Mac and have had them ever since.
That said, I think Preview has bugs. Neither of the workflows you outline work for me. Again, they APPEAR to sometimes, but changes are not saved after closing and reopening.
Also, clicking on different thumbnails in the sidebar actually changes the title in the window bar of the same pdf document, as if (as a previous poster said) the thumbnails are not in fact pages in a single pdf but rather more like tabs in a browser. If so, and if that's not a bug, then I'd still like to know how to combine all the thumbnails into a single pdf that always has those pages in that particular order, not simply a browser-like window with a sidebar that holds individual pdf pages or collections of pages (yes, I understand how to expand and collapse the "notebook" style thumbnails).
Drag the PDF file that you wish to append into the sidebar and continue to hold down the mouse button, until you see an orange line highlighted in the sidebar. Continue to keep the mouse button depressed while positioning the file to be appended ABOVE the orange line, then release the mouse button; this will cause the file to be appended.
However, if you drag/drop the file BELOW the orange line, it will be treated as a SEPARATE document in the sidebar, similar to a TAB within a browser where you can toggle between the 2 documents for viewing purposes (it is NOT appended, it remains as 2 separate documents).
The colour of the line will depend on the user's "highlight color", as selected in the Appearance pane of System Preferences. For most people (who don't change the default OS settings), the line will be blue not orange.
I'm not slamming Apple. I owned an original Mac and have had them ever since.
That said, I think Preview has bugs. Neither of the workflows you outline work for me. Again, they APPEAR to sometimes, but changes are not saved after closing and reopening.
Also, clicking on different thumbnails in the sidebar actually changes the title in the window bar of the same pdf document, as if (as a previous poster said) the thumbnails are not in fact pages in a single pdf but rather more like tabs in a browser. If so, and if that's not a bug, then I'd still like to know how to combine all the thumbnails into a single pdf that always has those pages in that particular order, not simply a browser-like window with a sidebar that holds individual pdf pages or collections of pages (yes, I understand how to expand and collapse the "notebook" style thumbnails).
Drag the PDF file that you wish to append into the sidebar and continue to hold down the mouse button, until you see an orange line highlighted in the sidebar. Continue to keep the mouse button depressed while positioning the file to be appended ABOVE the orange (or blue) line, then release the mouse button; this will cause the file to be appended.
The operative procedure is that you have to drag/drop the file to be appended ABOVE the orange (or blue) line (this line appears ONLY if you continue to keep the mouse button depressed while you hover the mouse pointer over the sidebar).
Drag the PDF file that you wish to append into the sidebar and continue to hold down the mouse button, until you see an orange line highlighted in the sidebar. Continue to keep the mouse button depressed while positioning the file to be appended ABOVE the orange (or blue) line, then release the mouse button; this will cause the file to be appended.
The operative procedure is that you have to drag/drop the file to be appended ABOVE the orange (or blue) line (this line appears ONLY if you continue to keep the mouse button depressed while you hover the mouse pointer over the sidebar).
I don't get the orange bar you talk about. It just stays blue and yes, I never let off the mouse button.
I think it's the "drag to the sidebar" talk that is causing confusion.
Drag the pages that you wish to add to your file and drop them directly on the sidebar icon of the file you wish to add to. If you just drag it to the sidebar Preview treats it as a separate file.
I think it's the "drag to the sidebar" talk that is causing confusion.
Drag the pages that you wish to add to your file and drop them directly on the sidebar icon of the file you wish to add to. If you just drag it to the sidebar Preview treats it as a separate file.
Mr. H, 10.6.1 change the behavior for me. When I drop the file directly on the sidebar item, it makes a multipage document. 10.6 did not do that.
I will try and get a screen recording on 10.6 and show this.
Either way, I am happy now. I just wish they would remove that delete to trash option.
Mr. H, 10.6.1 change the behavior for me. When I drop the file directly on the sidebar item, it makes a multipage document. 10.6 did not do that.
Weird. The screen shot vids I made were in 10.6, so I don't know why it didn't work for you. Certainly, in the screen shot vid you posted earlier, you didn't drag the second file directly on top of the first file's icon in the sidebar.
After spending 2 days trying to do this I found it was actually quite simple although not documented anywhere in Preview help.
Two ways I know of.
One.
First open the PDF file you wish to combine to. Then open the PDF file you wish to combine from.
This ends up a bit messy unless you have a large screen.
Then drag from the "from" sidebar (holding the mouse down) into the "to" sidebar but then comes the tricky part. Move the drag into the target until the target suddenly highlights in blue with a blue border around it. A blue bar will appear showing where the "drop" will occur. Release the mouse and drop.
Two.
Similar, open the target PDF and then a finder window containing the PDF's you wish to combine into the target.
Same technique, drag the new PDF into the target until the blue highlight happens, position the blue bar to the spot you want and drop.
One wrinkle however. If the "target" PDF has multiple pages then it must be "open" and showing all pages in the sidebar. If not, this will not work.
The technique works for sidebar thumbnails or for "tiled" thumbnails.
Then "Save As" not "Save" or "Save All" as these will replace your original target with the new combined file and this may not be what you want.
The real problem with Preview in Snow Leopard is one I just discovered, and it's huge. The search function is a complete disaster. It worked so well in Leopard -- it was very fast and found everything. Now it's glacially slow and fails to find many instances of words in a document that both Leopard Preview and Adobe Reader do. Apple really bit the big one on this update to Preview. I'm not going to upgrade any more Macs to Snow Leopard until it's fixed.
Comments
To the complainers in this thread:
I have just got my hands on a Snow Leopard machine, and I can't work out what on earth you are complaining about. I created a couple of simple PDFs and managed to combine them, delete some pages, and save the result as a new, self-contained PDF. I never did this is Leopard so I don't know what's changed, but the process seemed to me to be totally intuitive. I didn't have to experiment, it worked as I expected it to first time.
I took a screen capture of the process which can be seen here (right-click and download to view)
You didn't read the thread close enough. Watch my screen video here and you will see the difference. It works great when your original PDF has more than one page in it. If there is only one page, then there is a problem.
Watch Preview Complainer Problem 22 MB in size.
I'm not slamming Apple. I owned an original Mac and have had them ever since.
That said, I think Preview has bugs. Neither of the workflows you outline work for me. Again, they APPEAR to sometimes, but changes are not saved after closing and reopening.
Also, clicking on different thumbnails in the sidebar actually changes the title in the window bar of the same pdf document, as if (as a previous poster said) the thumbnails are not in fact pages in a single pdf but rather more like tabs in a browser. If so, and if that's not a bug, then I'd still like to know how to combine all the thumbnails into a single pdf that always has those pages in that particular order, not simply a browser-like window with a sidebar that holds individual pdf pages or collections of pages (yes, I understand how to expand and collapse the "notebook" style thumbnails).
All right--it appears that you can combine pdfs. Windows in Preview are in fact like a browser window with different tabs, except that each tab can have multiple pages. These multi-page "tabs" have the notebook-style icons. When you click on a notebook style icon (or a single page in the sidebar that is not part of another notebook) the title of the window bar changes. If you select "Save" or "Save As" at that point, you will save that particular notebook, including all changes you made to it, such as adding pages or deleting pages. You add or delete pages to a particular notebook by first making sure the notebook is expanded so that you can see all pages it contains, then dragging the new pages into it; you can put them wherever you want within the notebook. (It appears that if the notebook is not expanded, new pages you drag into the sidebar are treated as separate pdf documents.)
Took me a while to figure that out. Don't know whether it's counter-intuitive design or my advancing age.
Hope it helps.
All right--it appears that you can combine pdfs. Windows in Preview are in fact like a browser window with different tabs, except that each tab can have multiple pages. These multi-page "tabs" have the notebook-style icons. When you click on a notebook style icon (or a single page in the sidebar that is not part of another notebook) the title of the window bar changes. If you select "Save" or "Save As" at that point, you will save that particular notebook, including all changes you made to it, such as adding pages or deleting pages. You add or delete pages to a particular notebook by first making sure the notebook is expanded so that you can see all pages it contains, then dragging the new pages into it; you can put them wherever you want within the notebook. (It appears that if the notebook is not expanded, new pages you drag into the sidebar are treated as separate pdf documents.)
Took me a while to figure that out. Don't know whether it's counter-intuitive design or my advancing age.
Hope it helps.
But if you only have a single page in the file, the rules change and it doesn't work.
Does the new method save the resulting document with PDF chapters? It sounds like this may have been what Apple was after. I'd check myself if I had Snow Leopard.
I'm not SURE what pdf chapters are, but if they're what I think they are, then no, that's not what this does. The "notebooks" in the side bar of a pdf window are actually separate files on the hard drive. The sidebar just provides a way to organize them for for viewing in the main window. I can see this being useful at times; you drag a whole bunch of separate pdfs on related subject in the sidebar and you can move around more quickly between them than going up to the window menu and selecting a separate file. At the same time, you might not really want all the docs to be part of a single pdf and this design lets you do that. You can probably search across all pdfs, even separate notebooks, in the sidebar, too, though I haven't tried that.
Each "notebook" is however a separate file, not merely a chapter (or chapter marker) in a single pdf file. At least that's how it appears.
You didn't read the thread close enough. Watch my screen video here and you will see the difference. It works great when your original PDF has more than one page in it. If there is only one page, then there is a problem.
Watch Preview Complainer Problem 22 MB in size.
No, it works fine if there's only one page in the first PDF. What you are not appreciating is that there are two different ways in which you can add a file to the sidebar in Preview. Either, you can append it to a file that's already there, or, you can add it as its own file.
Go back to the first video I posted; go to 00:20 and press play. Watch as "Letters.pdf" is dragged from Finder to Preview. At first, a blue horizontal bar appears under page 3 of the Numbers PDF. If I'd let go at that point, Letters.pdf would have been added as its own file, rather than being appended to Numbers.pdf. However, as I move Letters.pdf upwards, a rectangle with rounded corners appears around all the pages of Numbers.pdf; this is indicating that when Letters.pdf is released, it'll be appended to Numbers.pdf.
So, when you want to add pages to a single page PDF, you have to drag onto the page in the sidebar, not underneath the page, as you can see in this video (right-click and save to view)
Hope all that makes sense!
I'm not slamming Apple. I owned an original Mac and have had them ever since.
That said, I think Preview has bugs. Neither of the workflows you outline work for me. Again, they APPEAR to sometimes, but changes are not saved after closing and reopening.
Also, clicking on different thumbnails in the sidebar actually changes the title in the window bar of the same pdf document, as if (as a previous poster said) the thumbnails are not in fact pages in a single pdf but rather more like tabs in a browser. If so, and if that's not a bug, then I'd still like to know how to combine all the thumbnails into a single pdf that always has those pages in that particular order, not simply a browser-like window with a sidebar that holds individual pdf pages or collections of pages (yes, I understand how to expand and collapse the "notebook" style thumbnails).
Drag the PDF file that you wish to append into the sidebar and continue to hold down the mouse button, until you see an orange line highlighted in the sidebar. Continue to keep the mouse button depressed while positioning the file to be appended ABOVE the orange line, then release the mouse button; this will cause the file to be appended.
However, if you drag/drop the file BELOW the orange line, it will be treated as a SEPARATE document in the sidebar, similar to a TAB within a browser where you can toggle between the 2 documents for viewing purposes (it is NOT appended, it remains as 2 separate documents).
until you see an orange line
The colour of the line will depend on the user's "highlight color", as selected in the Appearance pane of System Preferences. For most people (who don't change the default OS settings), the line will be blue not orange.
I'm not slamming Apple. I owned an original Mac and have had them ever since.
That said, I think Preview has bugs. Neither of the workflows you outline work for me. Again, they APPEAR to sometimes, but changes are not saved after closing and reopening.
Also, clicking on different thumbnails in the sidebar actually changes the title in the window bar of the same pdf document, as if (as a previous poster said) the thumbnails are not in fact pages in a single pdf but rather more like tabs in a browser. If so, and if that's not a bug, then I'd still like to know how to combine all the thumbnails into a single pdf that always has those pages in that particular order, not simply a browser-like window with a sidebar that holds individual pdf pages or collections of pages (yes, I understand how to expand and collapse the "notebook" style thumbnails).
================================================== ==========
To Append PDF files Using Preview:
Drag the PDF file that you wish to append into the sidebar and continue to hold down the mouse button, until you see an orange line highlighted in the sidebar. Continue to keep the mouse button depressed while positioning the file to be appended ABOVE the orange (or blue) line, then release the mouse button; this will cause the file to be appended.
The operative procedure is that you have to drag/drop the file to be appended ABOVE the orange (or blue) line (this line appears ONLY if you continue to keep the mouse button depressed while you hover the mouse pointer over the sidebar).
================================================== ==========
To Append PDF files Using Preview:
Drag the PDF file that you wish to append into the sidebar and continue to hold down the mouse button, until you see an orange line highlighted in the sidebar. Continue to keep the mouse button depressed while positioning the file to be appended ABOVE the orange (or blue) line, then release the mouse button; this will cause the file to be appended.
The operative procedure is that you have to drag/drop the file to be appended ABOVE the orange (or blue) line (this line appears ONLY if you continue to keep the mouse button depressed while you hover the mouse pointer over the sidebar).
I don't get the orange bar you talk about. It just stays blue and yes, I never let off the mouse button.
I don't get the orange bar you talk about. It just stays blue and yes, I never let off the mouse button.
Drag the pages that you wish to add to your file and drop them directly on the sidebar icon of the file you wish to add to. If you just drag it to the sidebar Preview treats it as a separate file.
I think it's the "drag to the sidebar" talk that is causing confusion.
Drag the pages that you wish to add to your file and drop them directly on the sidebar icon of the file you wish to add to. If you just drag it to the sidebar Preview treats it as a separate file.
Mr. H, 10.6.1 change the behavior for me. When I drop the file directly on the sidebar item, it makes a multipage document. 10.6 did not do that.
I will try and get a screen recording on 10.6 and show this.
Either way, I am happy now. I just wish they would remove that delete to trash option.
Mr. H, 10.6.1 change the behavior for me. When I drop the file directly on the sidebar item, it makes a multipage document. 10.6 did not do that.
Weird. The screen shot vids I made were in 10.6, so I don't know why it didn't work for you. Certainly, in the screen shot vid you posted earlier, you didn't drag the second file directly on top of the first file's icon in the sidebar.
Two ways I know of.
One.
First open the PDF file you wish to combine to. Then open the PDF file you wish to combine from.
This ends up a bit messy unless you have a large screen.
Then drag from the "from" sidebar (holding the mouse down) into the "to" sidebar but then comes the tricky part. Move the drag into the target until the target suddenly highlights in blue with a blue border around it. A blue bar will appear showing where the "drop" will occur. Release the mouse and drop.
Two.
Similar, open the target PDF and then a finder window containing the PDF's you wish to combine into the target.
Same technique, drag the new PDF into the target until the blue highlight happens, position the blue bar to the spot you want and drop.
One wrinkle however. If the "target" PDF has multiple pages then it must be "open" and showing all pages in the sidebar. If not, this will not work.
The technique works for sidebar thumbnails or for "tiled" thumbnails.
Then "Save As" not "Save" or "Save All" as these will replace your original target with the new combined file and this may not be what you want.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxbZRuCm_vs