Why don't PDFs display all their content in the preview anymore?

kmatson
Community Explorer

Canvas please help us display all content in a PDF file. We have noticed a subtle but significant change in the in-line preview and the file preview tool NOT displaying all the content of PDF files. We can enhance the PDF file so it displays all the content but when do we need to enhance and why? Is this a permanent change so we need to alert faculty to a process change or will this be resolved?

The in-line preview and the preview in files are not displaying the entire pdf file so students that are counting on that display to be complete are missing content. I have two examples and a good work-around but why is this happening and can it be fixed by Canvas?

Faculty are creating their pdf files in multiple ways but unless they enhance their scan in Adobe their students may not be seeing everything they saw in class if they view in the Files viewer or the in-line preview rather than downloading the file and viewing in Adobe which of course defeats the whole purpose of the preview. Please see both screen shots of this PowerPoint. The second is enhanced in Adobe and views properly in the Canvas file view.

standard pdf file does not show everything in Canvas display

See the enhanced image

Math writes up extensive notes and takes them to a scanner and this is the result. The file preview many students use doesn't show the entire pdf file. The one on the left is the Canvas preview and the one on the right is the complete view from Adobe Reader.

 math image with missing content on left

We can fix the pdf files by using Enhance your scan in Adobe but why is this happening, how do we know when we have to enhance the scan? I don't know enough about pdf files to know what or how to anticipate when it will drop content. Does anyone else know?

Thank you,

Karen Matson

University of Oregon