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In Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks when a PDF document opened in Preview is modified by an external application, Preview automatically reopens the new version with the same page displayed as before.

After updating to Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite this behavior changed, and each time a PDF is modified externally, Preview reopens it on the first page. This is quite annoying to me, since I work with many LaTeX documents, which I recompile often to verify how changes in LaTeX code render in the PDF.

The question is, can I bring back the previous behavior of reopening PDF on the same page in Preview or I'm forced to change my default PDF viewer to other application?

Note that the option "Start on the last viewed page" in Preview preferences is enabled. However it seems to work only when Preview is closed and then reopened. It does not work when the PDF file is changed.

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    I so hate this. Very annoying having to use another reader for working with LaTeX. I think this should be submitted in a bug report to apple.
    – oarfish
    Jan 18, 2015 at 19:12
  • Very annoying, I also encountered this very problem today when working with LaTeX and I am pretty unhappy with it.
    – NilsHaldenwang
    Jan 28, 2015 at 10:30
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    For what it's worth, I've found Skim to be a good viewer that doesn't have this issue. Just make sure to check "Check for file changes" in the Sync section of Preferences.
    – Jonathan Schuster
    Jul 14, 2015 at 21:35

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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I always ⌘+W to close the current preview then compile. Preview then reopens at the last position, with modifications. It's not that convenient, but works for me.

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If you're wondering about the whole LaTeX thingy, have you ever considered another LaTeX compiler? I normally use texmaker because it has a built-in pdf viewer and i love it!

Instead if you want the behaviour back by default, i reckon it can't be done (same behaviour on OS X 10.10 Yosemite and OS X 10.11 El Capitan)

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If you work with LaTeX I would suggest you to use TeXShop, which has a built-in pdf viewer, which keeps track of the page you last opened, even after re-compiling. Moreover, it can "synchronize" between the source and the pdf output document (and vice versa), meaning that a (command-) click on a word in the source highlights the same word in the pdf, and the other way around (very convenient!).

Instead of installing TeXShop only, you can download and install the full MacTeX-Distribution, which includes TeXShop, BibDesk and more.

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