a £2,599 disappointment? (my first MacBook; PDF readers related)

[Schismz]

[...]

However, my major problem so far has been the lack of any powerful or even decent PDF readers. As a medical professional this has halted turned my studying sessions into a nightmare. I rely on copy pasting text from different websites into my main PDF file that has been with me since the dawn of time. I copy notes to it from all over the intent using the "comments" feature that most PDF readers have. My document has around 4000 comments, all of them are purely text and nothing else.

May I ask why?

I'm going to guess that you're experiencing issues due to the extreme number of comments you've made to a single PDF which you've used since, "the dawn of time." The app that made it somehow manages to read/write it as reasonable speed, but nothing else does, because you're over in the extreme edge-case category.

Why not use something like DEVONthink or Evernote instead of a single gigantic PDF?

 

[Barbabenno]

I second Schismz comment. I realize that this is not what you asked for, it is simply well-intended advice. I completely understand that you may have started with a workflow that works for you, but if you encountered problems later down the road, that may be a sign that it is not the best setup. I've been there myself. At this point you may feel that you have invested so much in your setup that you should continue, as it is too much work to change.

However, my experience it is better to switch now instead of postpone it until when it is even more difficult to do so. It may reach the point that even your preferred PDF program will be unable to cope anymore and you may find that you cannot easily edit or convert the information to a different format.

You do not need to go into details, but a long PDF with 4000 comments seems better suited to (for example) translate to a long text document, where you can keep the main text as normal text, and insert the comments with a different layout. Or any other format that you prefer. There are also more sophisticated text management programs that possibly may provide you with the functionality that you now have in the PDF.
Converting to a different format will take time, but if - for instance - you copy over 100 comments each day, you'd be done in 40 days, which seems feasible.

Feel free to ignore this advice, it is intended in the best of spirits, as I can also fully understand that an alternative approach may not be an exact replacement to what you currently have.

 

[exoticSpice]

Again too limited in feature scope. It's a nice open source viewer, but still can't hold a candle to PDF Exchange Editor and Acrobat, unfortunately.

What is limiting in Skim?

The person just wants to view PDF's with lots of comments which Skim can do. It also works properly with dark mode and notes/comments can be exported to view on other PDF viewers without issue.

Of course signing and editing is not possible but for OP use case its fine.

 

[cdcastillo]

Since I bought the iPhone 4, I have been falling increasingly in love with Apple, this love only grew using the iPad 2, 4, iPad Air 2, the original iPad Pro 12.9, and finally the iPad Pro 11. However, I never invested in a MacBook because Apple just missed the mark on multiple generations of MacBooks during my extended honeymoon phase. Enters the M1 MacBooks and the insane battery life they come with. I waited for the MacBook Pro 16 inch M1 patiently and bought it the moment it became available (1 TB, 16 GB RAM model).

I am not a power user by any means, I mostly bought it for the screen and battery life, and I am not disappointed by either. MacOS has been growing on me but there has major annoyances that I made sure to feedback to Apple; mainly the lack of a built in clipboard, inability to change the size of FaceTime video call window (it's too big at its smallest size), and the forced "beautifying" effect the webcam insists on applying during video calls.

However, my major problem so far has been the lack of any powerful or even decent PDF readers. As a medical professional this has halted turned my studying sessions into a nightmare. I rely on copy pasting text from different websites into my main PDF file that has been with me since the dawn of time. I copy notes to it from all over the intent using the "comments" feature that most PDF readers have. My document has around 4000 comments, all of them are purely text and nothing else.

I used to use PDF x-change on my windows laptop that I bought in 2014; It had 8 gigabytes of RAM, a slow 5200 rpm hard drive, and a dual core i5-4200M intel processor. Despite how outdated this laptop is, it can run the my document with all the comments/annotations without a hitch. My PDF usage is actually very simple; I use the highlight tool and inside the highlight I add a comment/annotation that is viewable on double clicking the highlighted text; a basic functionality present in all PDF readers.

I assumed that when I update to an M1 Pro MacBook with super fast SSD and 16 gigabytes of RAM, I will not have any issues running the same PDF. Oh boy, how wrong I was.

Here is my experience with the most popular PDF readers on the Mac


Adobe Reader:
- I can open the Document without an issue; the moment I click on comments to bring up the comments pane; it takes forever to generate the comments and during the time it tries to bring up the comments, not to mention, Adobe reader becomes unresponsive and it takes it 5-10 seconds to scroll up or down; the odd part is that I have over 5 gb of free RAM and the CPU usage doesn't exceed 22% when all of this is happening. After the comments are generated in the comment pane, Adobe becomes comically slow and frankly unusable. I am truly embarrassed for Adobe and I don't understand how a company that big can't make a PDF reader work properly. I have found my posts online of people having similar issues and generally frustrated with Adobe reader; some examples of people running into similar issues:

Comment list takes too long to load

Getting comment list to show in Acrobat DC takes way too much time. It's a drag. At least on Mac OS.

acrobat.uservoice.com

Acrobat scrolling is incredibly laggy and slow

Hello, For the last two years I have had consistent problems with Acrobat Pro DC being extremely slow/stuttery while scrolling, highlighting, commenting on a document. This happens no matter what the size of the PDF is from less than 1 MB to 10+ MB. It appears to be very poorly optimized...

community.adobe.com

PDF Expert:
- Hats off for generating the 4000 comments without a hitch (known as annotations on PDF expert) and being smooth all the way, however, I can't edit the annotations from the annotation pane, which is a shame because I will need to hunt for the comment, double click it, and then edit the text inside the annotation/comment box, this wouldn't be a problem if the text size in the annotation box is so small and I am not given the option to control the default text size of annotations/comments which is super frustrating. Also, the night mode on PDF expert is a joke.... (photos attached), which isn't a problem but it just goes show the state of PDF readers on the Mac

Preview:
- Mac built preview is as fast as pdf expert. However, my pdf file is filled with odd looking squares because apparently, in preview, the highlighted text isn't clickable like it is on other PDF readers, so preview generates squares for me to click on; these squares frequently block other elements of the page; it is seriously embarrassing (photos attached).


I can go on and on and on, but honestly, If you can't get comments/annotations right in a pdf app, then what are we doing here? Don't get me start on PDF elements or other PDF readers on the Mac, I have tried all of them, and the three above were the least problematic.

Suggestions? solutions? am I missing something?

I really feel cheated buying this MacBook and not being able to use it for what I use laptops the most....

-- EDIT --
Never mind, I just saw you have tried it and found it too slow.
__ ____ ___ ___

I don't know if anyone has already commented on it, but I use PDF Pen (formerly by Smile software, recently acquired by Nitro), and I'm thrilled by it. I haven't even needed the "pro".

I'm also a health worker and I have it on my mac, iPad and iPhone. I use it to study, grade papers (I teach graduate level in 2 local colleges), annotate, write and sign 3rd payer claims for my patients.

I highly recommend you give it a go. It is way cheaper than Adobe Acrobat, and at least as powerful and versatile.

 

[cdcastillo]

A friend of mine swears by iClip

Windows 10/11 have a clipboard manager, it's built-in and very lightweight and works really well. I can copy anything including pictures and just paste them when in it's time to start pasting.

 

[jaze22]

I suppose you could get parallels, install Windows 11 and then use the PDF software you are familiar with?

 

[cubful]

Out of curiosity, why not?

Hey,

As I mentioned before, I have an iPad Pro, and interestingly, my PDF reader of choice there is Adobe. I always run the same PDF with the 3000+ comments on it without a problem. So, in my mind, I wasn't expecting to run into any problems with PDF readers on the Mac since:

1. my iPad Pro 11 inch, 4 GB of RAM, 2018 model doesn't run into problems
2. my very weak windows machine has PDF x-change which is very efficient

1+2 = I assumed my supercharged MacBook Pro isn't going to give me problems with PDFs, especially that the iPad's Adobe is more than capable of doing just that.

All of this PDF business is still a complete shock to me...

 

[lcubed]

for fun, you should run the activity monitor and see all the extraneous processes that adobe has running on your mac. it's like hodge dodge programming.

 

[cubful]

I completely agree with you: there's nothing comparable to PDF-Exchange Editor on the Mac, excepting Adobe Acrobat (not the reader). The problem with Acrobat is performance, though, and the GUI that went downhill since version 8 pro.

It's the one piece of software I really miss when I work on Macs. Preview is pretty dreadful, as are all the other PDF viewers. The major issue is that no Mac alternative can compete with Acrobat, and that Acrobat is a bloated mess nowadays.

That said, PDF Exchange Editor still is missing prepress functionality that is readily accessible in Acrobat. But for Office environments and CAD/architecture businesses (full 3d PDF support) PDF Exchange is the one to beat.


It is by far too limited in overall functionality, but great for its niche audience. Not usable though for business environments where PDF Exchange and Adobe Acrobat rule.


I wish the company behind PDF Exchange Editor would release it for Mac.

Thank you for the support, I was starting to feel lonely.

Adobe performance on the Mac is a joke! Shockingly so, my iPad Pro has Adobe reader and runs the same exact PDF without any issues.... I am suspecting the Mac version is an unoptimised mess?

I really only need to highlight and add comments/annotations in the form of pure unformatted text to the highlights, I don't actually edit the PDF itself or add pictures. I am not even a power PDF user like you are and I find myself with very limited options.

 

[cubful]

May I ask why?

I'm going to guess that you're experiencing issues due to the extreme number of comments you've made to a single PDF which you've used since, "the dawn of time." The app that made it somehow manages to read/write it as reasonable speed, but nothing else does, because you're over in the extreme edge-case category.

Why not use something like DEVONthink or Evernote instead of a single gigantic PDF?

But why am I not experiencing these issues on my iPad using the Adobe reader downloaded from the App Store?

I can run the same PDF, scroll and view comments and do a lot on the iPad Pro (2018; 4 gb of RAM) without a hiccup. I can also run the same PDF on the Mac on PDF expert without an issue, it's just that PDF expert is young software with limited functionalities (as I explained in my original post).

I also don't think the number of comments is extreme, the comments are purely unformatted texts, no pictures and the original PDF is untouched and unedited.

 

[exoticSpice]

But why am I not experiencing these issues on my iPad using the Adobe reader downloaded from the App Store?

It's a way lighter app than the Mac app. The Mac app is bloated and not optimized. It's like this on Windows as well.

 

[gbynum]

I use Foxit PDF viewer on my Windows systems. The Mac version seems a little slow but supports what you suggest you need. I normally don't have more than maybe 10 comments on a file so that may be a limiting situation, I don't know.

 

[cubful]

I second Schismz comment. I realize that this is not what you asked for, it is simply well-intended advice. I completely understand that you may have started with a workflow that works for you, but if you encountered problems later down the road, that may be a sign that it is not the best setup. I've been there myself. At this point you may feel that you have invested so much in your setup that you should continue, as it is too much work to change.

However, my experience it is better to switch now instead of postpone it until when it is even more difficult to do so. It may reach the point that even your preferred PDF program will be unable to cope anymore and you may find that you cannot easily edit or convert the information to a different format.

You do not need to go into details, but a long PDF with 4000 comments seems better suited to (for example) translate to a long text document, where you can keep the main text as normal text, and insert the comments with a different layout. Or any other format that you prefer. There are also more sophisticated text management programs that possibly may provide you with the functionality that you now have in the PDF.
Converting to a different format will take time, but if - for instance - you copy over 100 comments each day, you'd be done in 40 days, which seems feasible.

Feel free to ignore this advice, it is intended in the best of spirits, as I can also fully understand that an alternative approach may not be an exact replacement to what you currently have.

Thank you for your support. I am looking into my options, PDF expert seems to run fast. Lacking few features that would make it 100% suitable for my needs (making the comment text larger by default) but I am happy to support the developer and send them feedback.

 

[sb in ak]

Sounds frustrating. I do wonder if there's a better approach to the goal of notetaking. You might be trying to make PDFs accomplish a task they really weren't designed or optimized for (though I do get that the textbook is probably in PDF form). I'm curious what others do in your shoes?

 

[solouki]

...

I can go on and on and on, but honestly, If you can't get comments/annotations right in a pdf app, then what are we doing here? Don't get me start on PDF elements or other PDF readers on the Mac, I have tried all of them, and the three above were the least problematic.

Suggestions? solutions? am I missing something?

I really feel cheated buying this MacBook and not being able to use it for what I use laptops the most....

Hi cubful,

Sorry this reply is so late, probably too late, but I thought it might still be useful to you to know about such tools if you don't already.

First of all, I agree with many of the above posts that suggest using Skim, as Skim has a full feature set including "notes/annotations" that you have total control over including text font, size, color, surrounding box type, size, color, internal color, and so forth. Thus it would appear to satisfy your font issues with PDF notes. Personally, I've used Skim on a single PDF containing 10000+ pages with hundreds of font types and font sizes, tens of thousands of math equations, thousands of vector diagrams, and thousands of pixel images (photos), all scrolling smoothly just as fast as my old fingers can make it scroll --- without any lag and without any issues. In addition, because Skim is included in the annual Apple Mac distribution of TeXLive, it is both free and is kept up to date and probably will be for the foreseeable future since TeXLive (LaTeX, Skim, etc.) is employed for so much communication in the math, physics, chemistry, and engineering fields.

Secondly, I also agree with the above posts that using the PDF format as the "source" for your notes is suboptimal and one of the many other "database" formats or "markup" languages that can be easily converted to a PDF output would be better ... things like sqlite, json, LaTeX, or even plain text that you can add a markup language to, among numerous other possibilities come to mind. But with all of the multiyear effort you have already invested in your PDF source, I understand any hesitancy you have to change your source --- thus look into Skim as I and others have noted above.

Thirdly, if you ever do wish to alter your source format, there are a number of utilities that you might use, and I'll talk about just one such strategy. Say you wish to stay as close to your PDF source as possible while adding some flexibility, then converting to plain text with some markup language added may be your best bet. Skim itself can be helpful here, as it will readily extract the text out of a PDF file. I see that your PDF also contains images and tables. Skim can extract the images too, but the tables are a little more troublesome as they will be extracted and formatted into columns using spaces. If you do perform this type of text extraction, then you would add a simple markup language to your extracted source text to recover your final PDF output with figures, images, and tables. Again there are a number of options, such as JSON, LaTeX, HTML, etc. (Personally, I use TeX, but this is because of the mathematics included in my own source.)

Fourthly, here are a few other utilities that you might find useful. The first is pdfcpu; it includes both an API as well as Terminal commandline tools: pdfcpu will edit every possible feature of a PDF file, including all permissions, extractions, mergers, etc., and it will convert a json source to a PDF output. I use pdfcpu to extract the Title page, Table of Contents, Table of Figures, Table of Tables, topic-specific sections, bibliography, and index from very large PDFs and merge them into a smaller topic-specific PDF, all done automatically. Next there is the enscript commandline utility. This utility converts a plain text file into a PostScript (ps) file while attempting to maintain the text file's structure, such as columns and tables. It does so by adding whitespace to make columns in the PDF output -- it's not a perfect solution, but if you had a text source without any markup language added, then enscript would provide you with a useable PS output. The ps2pdf utility then easily translates the PostScript output to PDF output. [And finally, tools that I don't believe you require, but just in case, I use gpg2 for secure encryption/decryption using the RSA algorithm (public key encryption) for transmission and security. I also use git for versioning backup and transmission of the source.]

All of these tools are readily available on the Mac through Homebrew.
EDIT: In addition, Skim and these other tools all run under Linux and with versions under Windows.

Good luck,
Solouki

 

[gradi]

I spent the money for the screen (mostly), the fact that I have an iPad and iPhone (a big fan of both), and the battery life and the powerful hardware. Any laptop with similarly beautiful display is similarly expensive on the Windows side of things. The PDF functionality is one of my major things I use computers for. I wasn't expecting PDF functionality to be a problem on such a powerful machine since my very old laptop didn't struggle at all, as a result, I didn't bother testing PDF apps within the 2-week trial period through which I could've returned my MacBook but here we are...

Of course, it is completely understandable that you might not think to test this one thing. Who would? Who would have any inkling that it wouldn't work properly? I understand your situation and sympathize. I hope things will work out.

 

[brilliantthings]

Any updates OP?

 

[binarysmurf]

But why am I not experiencing these issues on my iPad using the Adobe reader downloaded from the App Store?

I can run the same PDF, scroll and view comments and do a lot on the iPad Pro (2018; 4 gb of RAM) without a hiccup. I can also run the same PDF on the Mac on PDF expert without an issue, it's just that PDF expert is young software with limited functionalities (as I explained in my original post).

I also don't think the number of comments is extreme, the comments are purely unformatted texts, no pictures and the original PDF is untouched and unedited.

Fascinating thread.

Just a thought. Given that you have an Apple Silicon Mac and you say that the iPad version of Adobe reader doesn't have the problems the Mac version does...

AS Macs can run iPad apps as well as Mac apps. Why not download the iPad version of Adobe Reader to your Mac and try that? It may work as an interim solution until the native Mac app improves.