Learn how to use a setting in the Preview app on your Mac to automatically reopen PDFs at the last page you were reading.
Preview is a great macOS app for working with PDF documents. You can annotate them, sign them, and use bookmarks to reference pages. But have you noticed that when using the Go To Page tool in your PDF, it sometimes takes you to the wrong page? For lengthy documents, this can be frustrating. Thankfully, there’s a simple setting you can adjust to fix this issue in Apple’s Preview.
Preview, page numbers, and PDFs
The Go To Page feature can behave unexpectedly because not all PDFs follow the same numbering format.
In many long PDF documents, the initial pages may have a different numbering style. For instance, the first page or two might not be numbered at all, or they could use Roman numerals before switching to regular numbers, as shown in the screenshot below.
This can obviously cause a problem because, by default, Preview recognizes the total number of pages in the document, not the numbering style chosen by the author. As shown in the screenshot below, I’m on Page 1 of the document, but Preview incorrectly labels it as Page 5.
So, if I use the Go To Page tool (Go > Go To Page) and enter 5 for the page number I want to visit, I’ll end up on page 1. That’s because Preview is taking me to the 5th page of the PDF instead. Talk about confusing!
Use logical page numbers for PDF files in Preview
To fix this PDF page problem, you just need to make a simple change in the settings.
1) Open Preview on your Mac and click Preview > Settings or Preferences from the top menu bar.
2) Select the PDF tab.
3) Next to Viewing documents, check the box for Use logical page numbers.
Now, when I enter 5 for the page I want to visit in the Go To Page tool, I will actually end up on Page 5 of the PDF, not the fifth page of the document.
While the display in the title bar won’t change when you adjust this setting, as shown in the screenshot above, you’ll be able to land on the correct page using the tool.
If you have shorter PDFs, you might just scroll to the page you need. However, for PDFs that are 50 to 100 pages or longer, and if you frequently use the Go To Page tool, this setting can be extremely helpful.
Have you encountered this issue while working with PDFs in Preview before? Is this setting something you didn’t know about and plan to use now? Let us know below.
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