Adobe Acrobat Reader DC Performance

[polyphenol]

I don't use it much, but I like to double-check that the PDFs I create view OK under Acrobat Reader (as well as Preview).

The other day, I used it on my MBP 15 (Apple Silicon) under Monterey. File was OK so just minimised and forgot it.

The next day, the machine felt very slightly warm, and I decided to check Activity Monitor. Acrobat Reader was using around 38% CPU - continuously. Even if I was doing nothing at all except watching the screen. Even if minimised. And I remembered it had done something like that some months ago. I'd just closed it and temporarily forgotten. Yes, I did check for updates (it was up to date then and now - 2022.002.20212).

Obviously it is easy to quit it. And it isn't, for me, a critical application. But it is pretty bad behaviour - and I'm glad I was on mains not battery.

 

[MacGizmo]

Acrobat has got to be Adobe's absolute worst performing piece of software in their entire history.

 

[HDFan]

Acrobat has got to be Adobe's absolute worst performing piece of software in their entire history.

Flash Player?

 

[MacGizmo]

Flash Player?

OK, so it's tied for the worst performing piece of software in their entire history.

The thing is, it was easy (for me) to just ignore Flash on websites, it's impossible to ignore Acrobat in my line of business.

 

[Herbert123]

Acrobat has got to be Adobe's absolute worst performing piece of software in their entire history.

Digital Editions? Most bloated and functionally decrepit eReader software...

 

[xraydoc]

Acrobat has got to be Adobe's absolute worst performing piece of software in their entire history.

It's truly amazing at just how slow Adobe Acrobat Reader is. It's like they're actively trying to make it as slow as possible on purpose. The only reason I have it still installed is because I very occasionally am sent a form that only works in Adobe and requires a digital signature. Fortunately, this is only a very rare occurrence, so it just sits on my SSD unused and untouched until the once a year I need it.

 

[Buadhai]

It is truly awful. Unfortunately, my wife needs to use it quite often. She's an attorney here in Thailand and frequently needs to fill out government-created PDFs with fillable form fields. The other day I went absolutely nuts on her M1 iMac because I couldn't get Acrobat to fill out a form using a Thai font. Turns out I had to download a font pack, but deciding which one to download was a real brain teaser. (And, why didn't it somehow tell me that it needed the font pack?) I never could find out how to change which Thai font Acrobat uses to fill a form. It seems to just randomly select an installed font without giving the user a chance to select one. So, we've got the odd situation where on her Intel MBA Acrobat uses one Thai font (Angsana New) and on her M1 iMac it uses a different font (TH Sarabun PSK). Both of those fonts are installed on both machines.

And, don't get me started on all the Adobe advertising that pops up to interrupt your work if you happen to click on the wrong icon.

 

[polyphenol]

It's truly amazing at just how slow Adobe Acrobat Reader is. It's like they're actively trying to make it as slow as possible on purpose. The only reason I have it still installed is because I very occasionally am sent a form that only works in Adobe and requires a digital signature. Fortunately, this is only a very rare occurrence, so it just sits on my SSD unused and untouched until the once a year I need it.

Have you noticed that Firefox can now do some fairly impressive things with PDFs.

Might not work on the specific ones you need to touch, but it is considerably more efficient!

 

[xraydoc]

Have you noticed that Firefox can now do some fairly impressive things with PDFs.

Might not work on the specific ones you need to touch, but it is considerably more efficient!

I pretty much just use Preview for most things PDF, or I'll read/edit it on my iPad with either GoodNotes or PDF Expert.

But occasionally (around 4-5 times per year), I need to digitally sign something with Acrobat and an encrypted Adobe signature file. Unfortunately I've not found an alternative for Acrobat for doing this. As soon as that happens, I'd dump Acrobat for good.

 

[Marshall73]

Acrobat is terrible. We have a client who has to keep an old Intel Mac to run acrobat because it crashes so often on AS macs when doing comments etc.

 

[Herbert123]

If only PDF-XChange Editor would be available for the Mac platform. It really has opened my eyes to an alternative that is actually far more usable than Adobe Acrobat Pro.

Aside from the missing pre-press preflighting, everything else is is 'there' compared - down to full Acrobat Javascript for forms support.

Fast, optimized, a sane GUI: all that Acrobat Pro is not.

The free version is a WAY better PDF reader than Acrobat Reader will ever be.

Sad state of affairs indeed.

 

[polyphenol]

I pretty much just use Preview for most things PDF, or I'll read/edit it on my iPad with either GoodNotes or PDF Expert.

But occasionally (around 4-5 times per year), I need to digitally sign something with Acrobat and an encrypted Adobe signature file. Unfortunately I've not found an alternative for Acrobat for doing this. As soon as that happens, I'd dump Acrobat for good.

I also use Preview for most purposes. But since the changes to Firefox, the many downloads I do (often just to extract a few words) can be handled directly in Firefox.