Preview doesn't always display .pdf files correctly....

Some .pdfs I open come up with some logos or pictures and the background colours - however the writing is all coloured blocks, and completely useless. Why does this happen?

There are numerous reports of this on this (and other) boards.  I did some sleuthing when we had this issue occur as part of a work project.  Looks like something is broken with font-linking, which is apparently a relatively newer "feature" of the PDF format.  The way we have fixed it (we hope), is to have things save in the PDF/A format, which is an archival subformat of PDF that doesn't use icky things that cause this problem.  Looks the same as PDF and opens seamlessly.  On Windows MS Word 2007, you use PDF/A by doing "Save As", selecting PDF, then clicking "Options".  The last check box mentions "ISO something-or-another PDF/A".  Check that, and they seem to work.
Of course, this helps if you or your organization are the creators of the PDFs in question.  If you're an end-user and they aren't willing/able to address the issue, your workaround would be to use Adobe Reader to open it. Slower and annoying, but at least you can read it.
Hope this helps...

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