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By default, Preview displays pages like this in two-page mode:

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How can I get it to display them like this instead?

enter image description here

Acrobat does the latter but Acrobat is not nearly as responsive with this file as Preview is.

Szabolcs
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3 Answers3

23

I recommend to add a blank page as the new first page:

  1. Menu View->Contact Sheet
  2. Click page 1
  3. Menu Edit->Insert->Blank page
  4. Move the new blank page to the first place
  5. Now you can view it in 2-page mode.
Guillermo Gutiérrez
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20

I have been bothered by this for a long time. By accident, I have discovered a bug of Preview. And I have noticed that by exploiting this bug we can change the pairing.

By default, Preview displays pages in two-page mode like this:

page 1

page 2, page 3

page 4, page 5

etc.

To change the pairing, click on the view icon on the toolbar and choose Continuous Scroll or Single Page (or simply press Command+1 or Command+2), then right click on the pages and choose Two Pages or Two Pages Continuous.

To change it back, click on the view icon on the toolbar and choose Two Page (or simply press Command+3).

lijunkang
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    So the solution is to trigger the two-page view via the context menu of the content area, not from the menu, the toolbar, or using the keyboard shortcuts. Worked for me on Catalina, thanks! – Nickolay Mar 15 '20 at 21:40
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    @Nickolay Yes! And for this to work, the pdf cannot be already in two-page mode. – lijunkang Mar 16 '20 at 22:22
  • When I do this, the up arrow still works, but the down arrow now behaves very strangely. Sometimes it does nothing, sometimes hitting it several times causes Preview to move forward one pair of pages. Quitting preview and restarting restored the default behavior. – Robert Bruner Jun 29 '21 at 19:54
  • @RobertBruner yes, this is due to the fact that we exploit a bug of Preview, not a supported feature. Hitting the down arrow rapidly twice should let you go down one pair of pages. Otherwise, I suggest using two page continuous mode. – lijunkang Jul 01 '21 at 08:24
  • Unfortunately this doesn't seem to work in Mojave (10.14.6), unless I'm right-clicking in the wrong place, Two Page mode doesn't seem to show up in any context menus. – Nilloc Sep 22 '21 at 02:08
  • @Nilloc Sorry, I haven't tested it in Mojave. Can't help you :( – lijunkang Sep 23 '21 at 08:05
  • This is the weirdest bug, but a most welcome bug. Thanks! I read a lot of PDFs on my laptop, and lack of ability to display the correct spreads has bothered me forever. – SevenSidedDie Jan 02 '22 at 21:35
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    @SevenSidedDie Glad that it helps! I hope Apple will make this an official feature for Preview. – lijunkang Jan 07 '22 at 16:55
  • FYI this is working nicely in Monterey. The odd down-arrow behaviour it still there, but quickly pressing it twice works as expected. – drevicko Mar 24 '22 at 00:46
4

I didn't find any way to display facing pages the other way in Preview. In Skim you can uncheck PDF > PDF Display > Book Mode.

Lri
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