When I request that a page from a PDF be deleted, as I select the option from the contextual menu, the page does “seemingly” delete. However, when I navigate to another document and return to the initial PDF, the page is still part of the PDF. It didn’t delete. How does one apply the changes?
RE: DevonThink Pro Office 2.5.2
Data > Save or command-s
If the close-window button on the DEVONthink window is “dirty” (there’s a black dot in it) then your change is not saved and will not be retained when you navigate away from that document. This is consistent with Apple’s application design guidelines.
I understand your explanation, thank you. However, after I delete the page from the PDF, the options to SAVE remains grayed out. (FYI, I don’t see the black dot anywhere)
On the other hand, when I rearrange the order of the pages, navigate away and return, the PDF is “saved” as the new page order is retained. I would assume the same would happen when deleting a page.
Hmmm, and over the same does happen. Deleting a page turns the PDF document dirty and Data > Save is active (not greyed out).
Are you having trouble with every PDF, or some, or one? How long is the document (number of pages)?
This is happening to me as well. Older PDFs, as well as newly imported PDFs.
I’m able to delete the extra page, but selecting another document, and returning results in no page being removed.
Is this a known bug now, and will there be a fix-it release soon?
Many thanks.
So far, all PDFs. Just 1-4 page files so far. Haven’t tried larger docs.
The Save command under the Data menu will be unavailable if either a save has already been performed, or if the selected document has had no edit changes after opening (which would be the case if a previous edit had not been saved).
What happens if Command-S (the Save command) is performed after editing the PDF? That’s what I do, and I haven’t run into problems after deleting a page or otherwise editing a PDF.
That’s what suppose to happen, I know. However, it does not.
Cmd-S causes the program to “beep” (error).
The only solution is to delete a page, and then MOVE the remaining pages around, at which point the PDF is “dirty”, and can be saved by the command/menu option. For some reason (bug?), the “delete page from PDF” command is not rendering the PDF dirty for a potential save. I’ve tested this while IN browser/view mode as well as individual document view mode.
Not sure when it started but Apple removed that useful “dirty dot” indicator in several of its apps, e.g. TextEdit.
Thinking back about some similar issues involving PDFs, my suspicion moves to the existence of Adobe’s PDF viewer plugin.
That plugin isn’t required to view PDFs in OS X, and has been tied to flaky behavior for years.
After installing or updating Acrobat or Reader (which I don’t install on most of my Macs), I always immediately remove that plugin. As I recall, it gets installed in ~/Library/Internet Plugins.
Some apps that support versioning have had the “dirty red” button removed – not DEVONthink (which has the button and does not support versioning).
PDFs that are locked (see Tools > Show Info) cannot have pages deleted – just a possibility here; worth looking into perhaps.
I don’t agree that the Adobe Plugin is dangerous. It works fine here and has for years; through many generations of DEVONthink, OS X, and Acrobat/Reader. What I do know is that DEVONthink frequently has flakey behavior that Support cannot replicate. (Not a dis on support – just happens.)
But, there are always ways to do what you want. For example: open a PDF in Preview from DEVONthink (Data > Open With… or the contextual menu) and attempt to delete page(s) and save. In Preview, the page delete function is not on a menu in recent versions. Instead, choose to View > Thumbnails, select one or more thumbnail images of pages, and press shift-command-delete to remove the selected page(s). (I would be interested in knowing if this succeeds for the OP where DEVONthink fails.)
There have been a number of reports of instability caused by the Adobe PDF viewer plugin, that were not related at all to DEVONthink. See both Adobe and Apple forums.
Although this isn’t definitive proof, I’ve seen several Support issues resolved by removal of the Adobe PDF viewer plugin. Most of the issues involved flaky behavior regarding PDFs.
Thanks for reminding me it’s versioning’s fault.
I am having this same issue. COMMAND-X used to work fine to delete selected page, but now the change is not recognized and saved when move on to next file. (Workaround - If I also move a page, then the changes including the deleted page are saved.) Annoying as I use this command a lot. Bug seemed to start after latest upgrade to version 2.5.2.
I have the exact same issue. Is there any workaround? Will a new release correct this soon?
Sorry, I know this response may only add to the sense of frustration for those experiencing an issue. I just can’t reproduce that issue.
On my MacBook Pro Retina, Command-X will delete a selected page of a PDF, and the page will stay deleted if I have either switched to a different document in the Three Panes view, or pressed Command-S before removing focus from the edited PDF.
I’m on Lion if it matters. 10.7.5
I’ve reproduced the issue. DEVONthink Pro Office 2.5.2 on OS X 10.8.3:
(1) A long PDF (greater than 50 pages), (2) command-x delete a page in that PDF, (3) switch to another page in that PDF, then (4) click away from the PDF to some other document in the file list (or somewhere else in DEVONthink), then (5) click back into the first PDF. The deleted page is still present. Caveat: if I move through steps 1 - 5 at a slow pace, I don’t see the problem – so perhaps it has something to do with a lag in interaction with PDF Kit or whatever DEVONthink is interacting with to cause page deletion in a document. By “reproduce” I mean I can cause the problem reported by all of the above users in 6 of 10 attempts to follow the method I outlined above.
Thanks, korm. DEVONthink is interacting with PDFKit to perform and display the edit, and with the standard OS X procedure to save a modified file.
I was interested in the possible impact of speed of the actions. But on my MacBook Pro Retina with a fast 4-core i7 CPU (and at the moment, 9 GB free RAM), no matter how rapidly I ran through the steps you described, I couldn’t reproduce the ‘lost deletion’ issue. I tried page deletions 5 times on a PDF with more than 100 pages. In all attempts, the deleted page remained deleted.
I’m running OS X 10.8.3.
It would seem surprising that a Mac could be tricked by the speed of human actions, but it might be interesting to see the information on OS X version, CPU and available free RAM on the computers of those who experience the ‘lost deletion’ issue.
Thanks for your efforts Bill. I am still running Lion - 10.7.5. This is on a Mac Pro 2008 with 2x quad cores and 14G RAM. I haven’t noted any speed correlation with the issue and it happens even with very small 2-3 page documents. It seemed to start after the most recent DevonTHINK upgrade (2.5.2). Used to be fine. I don’t believe I have done any recent Adobe upgrades.
