Have an Acrobat Do Your Laundry

Peter Rukavina

On my Mac, PDF files generally open in an application called Preview which is quick, works well, and has just the right number of features. I’m upstairs here at silverorange borrowing a PC with a printer attached to print some PDF files, and I’m amazed at how slowly the Acrobat Reader opens under Windows, even on this zippy modern machine.

From the looks of things when Acrobat is loading, it loads extensions that handle everything from eBook reading to digital signatures every time it loads. Even if it’s just loading a 1-page PDF with no bells nor whistles.

Is there any way to configure Acrobat to start up lean and mean and to only load extensions when it needs to?

Comments

Submitted by Stephen on

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It’s slow enough that I actually consider if it’s even worth opening each time I see a PDF link.

Submitted by al o'neill on

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On a similar note, it’s surprisingly difficult to track down a slightly older verion of Acrobat Reader when I needed to install one on an old-ish computer and didn’t have a wordperfect cd kicking around. Adobe seems to really want you to use the latest version.

Submitted by Clark on

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It’s even worse on a Mac — which you likely already know. Adobe Acrobat is likely the slowest software I have ever used and I avoid it for viewing pdf’s whenever possible.

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Photo of Peter RukavinaI am . I am a writer, letterpress printer, and a curious person.

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