macOS Sierra 10.12.2 - OCR Text Removed with Preview And Scanned PDFs?

macOS Sierra 10.12.2 – OCR Text Removed with Preview And Scanned PDFs?

40 Comments

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.

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.

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.

About the Author

Brooks Duncan helps individuals and small businesses go paperless. He's been an accountant, a software developer, a manager in a very large corporation, and has run DocumentSnap since 2008. You can find Brooks on Twitter at @documentsnap or @brooksduncan. Thanks for stopping by.

Leave a Reply 40 comments

GaryM - April 28, 2022 Reply

I am running macOS Monterey 12.3.1, with ScanSnap running ABBYY, and I just noticed this same problem. I can use Preview to Highlight, or Markup, PDFs fine and save them, and the PDF remains searchable. But if I delete pages in Preview, then Save, the resultant PDF can NO LONGER be searched. Does anybody know of fixes for this; is Apple even aware/working on this?

    Jakub - April 29, 2022 Reply

    Hi Gary.

    Since there is still no solution to the OCR-layer, I am not using ABBY for OCR anymore, but the ScanSnap integrated solution. Although it is not my preferred solution, it works fine and resolved my issues. But I still need to rerun OCR on older documents if I edit them in order not regain the OCR Layer.

      Gary Macek - April 29, 2022 Reply

      Jakub, Thanks for the super-fast, very helpful comment. But I am afraid I don’t know what you mean by “ScanSnap integrated solution” nor how to implement it? ABBYY profiles of course have the ‘Send to’ to direct to another application. But I only see ABBYY, Acrobat, PowerPDF, and PDF Converter. Does your solution still create searchable PDFs, while avoiding Apple Preview app removing the OCR-layer?

Jakub - July 10, 2020 Reply

Does anyone have a solution for macOs 10.14.6 for that issue instead of redoing the OCR on the edited document?

Jakub - October 14, 2019 Reply

Hey guys.

Coming back to that topic. I am facing the similar problem with Mojave. Currently I am running MacOs 10.14.6 and if I delete one page in a scanned document, which has the OCR content, it is deleted upon saving the new file.
Basically the same behaviour as seen before. Can anybody confirm that?

    Eleuteruiz - October 23, 2019 Reply

    I am having this problem for the first time… with Catalina! Did anyone else experience this with 10.15? Any solution?

    Charles - November 4, 2019 Reply

    I’m having this problem with Catalina, which is incredibly frustrating!
    Preview has had a number of long-standing bugs (ex. the vertically-squashed thumbnails in ‘Contact Sheet’ view, warping regular rectngular pages, such as A4, into squares).
    This article gives some insight into why Apple’s software is so buggy: https://tidbits.com/2019/10/21/six-reasons-why-ios-13-and-catalina-are-so-buggy/

David - October 7, 2017 Reply

This problem still exists in 10.12.6. I tried it both on my MacBook Air and on my Mac Mini. Same problem on both.

Does anybody have any experiences with High Sierra?

Mark B - April 20, 2017 Reply

I have posted comments about this OCR/PDF corruption bug at a zotero website:

https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/274497

I showed that Preview will overwrite certain types of OCR information in pdf files. My experience is limited to pdf files with OCR information using Clearscan in Adobe Acrobat. What I have found is that the OCR information is corrupted when the pdf is opened, modified (e.g. add an annotation), and then saved in Preview. This problem first surfaced in ~2009 (long before El Capitan), and is still active relative to current versions of Mac OS X (Yosemite, 10.10.5), Preview 9.0 (909.17), and Adobe Acrobat (XI, 11.0.20). I reported the problem as bug to Apple but there has been no fix yet, to the best of my knowledge.

    Mark - April 20, 2017 Reply

    Note: I made an error reporting about my operating system, which is MacOS Sierra (10.12.4).

Martijn - February 16, 2017 Reply

Thanks for sharing this, I was having the same problem until I upgraded to the latest version of Sierra.

Ron K - February 14, 2017 Reply

Those with older ScanSnaps may want to update your software to the latest, even if it states unsupported. I love that they release the latest (6.3 L61) with drivers for the old scanners, I’m using my S510M from 2008 still (on macOS Sierra). I’ll be upgrading to the next model they release because they don’t leave users out in the cold!!!

Alex - January 27, 2017 Reply

Good to hear that the issue seems to be fixed.

Does the fix apply to all PDFs, or just new files scanned with 10.12.3? Has anyone who has updated to 10.12.3 tried editing OCR’d ScanSnap documents scanned with 10.12.1 or 10.12.2? I have read that these become “corrupted” with 10.12.3, so am still a bit wary of updating. If anyone who has already updated could test this out, I would be grateful to know what happens.

    Anton - January 27, 2017 Reply

    Don’t worry Alex, the problem is solved. (Didn’t have anything to do with the ScanSnap anyway.)

    Cheers.

Trev - January 23, 2017 Reply

Have just installed macOS 10.12.3 and it has fixed the issue for me

    Anton - January 24, 2017 Reply

    Great!

    Apple says that the update 10.12.3 that came out yesterday:

    1 Improves automatic graphics switching on MacBook Pro
    2 Resolves graphics issues while encoding Adobe Premiere Pro projects on MacBook Pro with Touch Bar
    3 Fixes an issue that prevented the searching of scanned PDF documents in Preview.
    4 Resolves a compatibility issue with PDF documents that are exported with encryption enabled.
    5 Fixes an issue that prevented some third-party applications from correctly importing images from digital cameras.

    I suppose this bug was related with the third issue.

    Michael - January 26, 2017 Reply

    Brilliant, thanks for the confirmation — it’s the green light I’ve been waiting for to install macOS Sierra.

Anton - January 21, 2017 Reply

Upgraded today….,

….and after saving my pdf with preview, the our-layer was gone.

Scanner: brother MFC-J6920DW
OCR: Devonthink Pro Office that uses Abby Finereader as its engine to do the OCR

I think the problem exists with Preview and Abby. Not so much to do with the ScanSnap.

Will be using another pdf-reader until this problem is solved. Thanks for your article!

Thierry - January 10, 2017 Reply

Do we have some good news with latest beta 10.12.3?

    Alex - January 12, 2017 Reply

    I have just done a Twitter search to see if there have been any developments, and this tweet sounds encouraging:

    Peter Vendlegård ‏@veke71 Jan 10
    @9to5mac The OCR-layer / ScanSnap bug is fixed in the new MacOS beta. I can add stuff and save them with P’veiw and retain the OCR again.

Michael - January 10, 2017 Reply

Brooks, can you recover the removed OCR text by going back to an earlier version, using Apple’s “Revert to” feature (effectively a file-level Undo)? I don’t currently have Sierra to try it on.

While this will undo your changes, at least you can (if it works) quickly retrieve lost text.

    Anton - January 21, 2017 Reply

    You can go back to an earlier version using Time Machine. That should recover your file.

Ronald - January 6, 2017 Reply

Here some more in dept info about the subject:
http://tidbits.com/article/16966

Mike - January 5, 2017 Reply

The web site 9 to 5 Mac had a story about this today. I’m not sure if I can post the link, but I’ll try:

https://9to5mac.com/2017/01/03/sierra-preview-pdf-errors-scansnap/

“PDF-handling problems in Sierra that broke ScanSnap are back in 10.12.2, many apps affected”

It seems to be an Apple issue that is affecting more apps than just the Fujitsu ones.

Bob Levy - January 5, 2017 Reply

I may have to revert back to El Capitan. MacOS Sierra messed up my Neat 4.3.0 (Can’t crop) Downloading and installing Neat 4.5.0.99 brought crashes and instablity.

I don’t care to use scan to cloud and Neat’s new subscription model is very pricey so I’m trying Paperless 2.3.8 and get a huge number of crashes and OCR is very intermittent.

Not sure what to do. In the short term, going back to 10.11 may be a solution, but ultimately, I’ve got to stay relatively current with MacOS.

Jim - January 4, 2017 Reply

Fujitsu’s “fix” for the OS Sierra “update” was disappointing to me. I had thought they’d deploy a new suite of programs that had been patched to fix this glitch. Instead, they presented a confusing matrix of instructions to download and install this and that, and, in trying to follow their instructions, I managed to completely destroy the ScanSnap software I’d had installed. It took me a long time to revert to what I had before, let alone trying to “upgrade” to Sierra. I did get it running, including Scan To Cloud which was a bit difficult for me to do.

I am holding out, using El Capitan, and using the things I’ve paid for.

    CertifiedMacintoshConsultant - January 20, 2017 Reply

    Jim, Agreed. Fujitsu’s installer is confusing however let it do it’s thing. When you are prompted to enter the admin password, it’s because it’s trying to install the base elements that are being patched, just enter your admin password and it will do the full and complete update of all the modules without any needed action from you. Past installers did not tell you what steps were being performed so you were left to wonder “Did this install anything? Or do I need to manually run it.”