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Acrobat is intrusive, slow and non-customizable

vincentuden.xyz

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Re: Acrobat is intrusive, slow and non-customizable

#91

Post by dunham »

funktour wrote: post #82

There are a surprising number of Preview defenders here. You guys must have never had to open a 500+ page document, because for me, that's an all-but guaranteed way to make Preview crash. Preview is only best because the major alternatives (Acrobat) suck more. PDF readers I actually like: Zathura (obviously), sioyek (if you like customizability and Vim-like bindings, this is a good one!), and Skim. Everything else tr…

I haven't had it crash. Typically my documents are under a 300 pages (either academic books or papers), but occasionally I use the PDF reference, which is 1300 pages.

Re: Acrobat is intrusive, slow and non-customizable

#93

Post by makeitdouble »

dylan604 wrote: post #64
kennyadam wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft PowerToys has this functionality, called Peek: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/peek

Is that something that comes built-in or installed?

To pile on wlesieutre's point, it's a separate app but should be part of every user install IMHO.

Keyboard manager for instance is plenty powerful while keeping a very simple interface, and will paliate the need for AutoHotKey for most people.

There's a flurry of other stuff that I guess Microsoft employees felt are tremendously helpful but couldn't convince management to bake into the system.

Re: Acrobat is intrusive, slow and non-customizable

#94

Post by acdha »

foolswisdom wrote: post #88
sureglymop wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that they called it "portable" document format and now I regularly get PDFs that display "Please open this file in Acrobat" if opened in any other viewer... Great stuff.

Wait, this actually happens?

Constantly. They added a bunch of scripting extensions so a lot of fillable forms render a message telling you to use Acrobat until all of that stuff executes.

Re: Acrobat is intrusive, slow and non-customizable

#96

Post by cubefox »

For editing PDF content on Windows, "PDF-XChange Editor" (formerly PDF-XChange Viewer) can be pretty useful:

https://www.pdf-xchange.com/product/pdf-xchange-editor

There is a free version available during install (not immediately clear from the website), which already can do some things most free PDF viewers can't, like editing text.

Re: Acrobat is intrusive, slow and non-customizable

#97

Post by itopaloglu83 »

dylan604 wrote: post #39
itopaloglu83 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Acrobat also installs this weird service that tries to upload all the pdf files you open, regardless of what you do, you cannot shut it down or disable. I was in charge of the electronic document management system of a university, and kept having issues with deleting pdf files after opening them. The error said the files were still in use, and exiting Acrobat didn't solve the issue either. Apparently, the background…

> Acrobat is abusing a standard, portable document format, and trying to become synonymous with it, despite being very hostile against users What? They're just extending the portability by uploading the files to the cloud so you can view them from anywhere! /s I'm assuming/hoping that's all it is in whatever this uploading is. Did you find out why it was uploading files, and more importantly, where?

We didn't have the subscription, and there was no option to upload documents, or any information in the app preferences as to what was happening at all.

So, we couldn't find any information why it was happening, except after our complain and an update later, the background service started closing files when the Adobe app was exited.

We had tens of thousands of applicant documents, most of them contained personally identifiable information (PII) about future students, those files should not be even stored locally, except for the protected PII storage, yet along being uploaded to a random S3 bucket somewhere to be stolen by hackers.

If you're using Windows and have Adobe installed, just check your running programs and on top you'll see that weird Adobe service that you cannot disable even if you turn off its auto-start feature. Acrobat reader is supposed to be a PDF viewer, why does it even have a background service for f.ck sake.

Re: Acrobat is intrusive, slow and non-customizable

#98

Post by D13Fd »

1121redblackgo wrote: post #68
juliangmp wrote: post #42

Personally I'm still impressed by Adobe's work there. They designed the PDF format but still manage to have the worst PDF reader on the entire market.

It aint easy being cheesy. It’s truly impressive how they’ve been able to lock in and lock down the entire corporate world for 2 decades while being that mediocre. Also equally baffling how mediocre all the alternatives are.

PDF Expert is excellent. It's insane to me that they don't bring it to PC. It would be a gold mine.

Re: Acrobat is intrusive, slow and non-customizable

#99

Post by russellbeattie »

juliangmp wrote: post #42

Personally I'm still impressed by Adobe's work there. They designed the PDF format but still manage to have the worst PDF reader on the entire market.

Until LLM models came along, I was convinced the first file format to gain sentience would be a PDF.

It can contain vector drawings, fonts, bitmap images, formatting, hypertext, plain text, rasterization hints (for everything from watch displays to 10 ton multicolor printing presses), layers, annotations, metadata, versioning, multiple languages, interactive forms, digital signatures/encryption, DRM, audio, video, 3D objects including CAD drawings, accessibility info, captions, file attachments and yes, even JavaScript. (And probably more - most of that was off the top of my head plus a quick search to remind myself.)

I'm personally amazed that any application can successfully open and edit a PDF document without creating a black hole in space, so Acrobat's continued suckiness into its third decade doesn't surprise me in the least.

Re: Acrobat is intrusive, slow and non-customizable

#100

Post by HPsquared »

1121redblackgo wrote: post #68
juliangmp wrote: post #42

Personally I'm still impressed by Adobe's work there. They designed the PDF format but still manage to have the worst PDF reader on the entire market.

It aint easy being cheesy. It’s truly impressive how they’ve been able to lock in and lock down the entire corporate world for 2 decades while being that mediocre. Also equally baffling how mediocre all the alternatives are.

Some companies are more focused on the PvP aspects of business.
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