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Does anyone else think Acrobat 8 sucks?!?!?

M

Moof1904

macrumors 65816
Original poster
May 20, 2004
1,061
103
First, I hate the changes they've made to the UI. Not attractive or intuitive.

I can live with that, though. My biggest gripe is that it's as slow as an arthritic snail. I'm running virtually no other apps (Mail, FireFox, iTunes) on a dual 2.5 G5 with 3.5 gigs of RAM and Acrobat is S-L-O-W. I've got a single, 1.1 meg PDF open and I'm using the measuring tools on it. I have to wait for the screen to move in ragged, jerky fits and starts and the act of drawing perimeters or areas for measurement is agonizing.

Oh, and it's crashed on me, too. Not extremely frequently, just enough to be really, really annoying.

All in all, I'm not impressed with Acroscat 8.

Oh, yeah, and what's with the keyboard shortcuts for the magnifier glass? Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.
 
Acrobat's Browser integration is so bad in Windows, that you can't close a window or tab with Ctrl-F4 or Ctrl-W as it thinks you are trying to close the program's window, which doesn't exist.

I don't use the Mac version, even though it is installed. I use Preview for everything.

TEG
 
I'd use Preview if I could get away with it but I need the measuring tools to measure various values from architectural drawings for calculation purposes.

Slow, buggy, fugly. Not the Acrobat I used to know and love...
 
Adobe software is turning into bloatware more and more with each version. They are not alone in this regard.

They still are able to make some great products, but those, alas, have the same trend. You have to upgrade your computer just to compensate for newer software being slower in performing the same, basic functions without attaining any new useful functionality. This is ok if the software slows down with the same pace as the hardware becomes faster. Acrobat software manages to clog up even the fastest machines.

The best alternative is to use alternatives whenever possible.
 
Yes, the Adobe has gone little too bloat-y on their side. Especially with CS3 and all the fade in and out debate that's going on Adobe mailing lists. I wish Adobe can start using XCode. I know it's a huge leap for them to make, having to learn new tools and such, but even Microsoft did it for their new office. And with that transition, I think Adobe needs to make it totally native to OS X. XCode won't make a difference if its still slow. Adobe needs to start writing in Objective C and using the native frameworks available to OS X. I don't know what Adobe uses currently, so I can not judge. But I think with CoreGraphics, and the Cocoa Framework, most of the stuff Adobe is doing enough to be done using all that. I hate the slowness of the new Acrobat. The worse thing is that Safari uses Acrobat to view PDFs inline. I think Adobe just needs to learn a lot from great examples such as Preview.
 
it is slow, but its better than ver 7 on my MB. I don't really have a choice since preview on tiger aren't good for any advanced editing.
 
Here are two solutions that I found work much better because they are not bloated like Acrobat.


1. This one is free, it is called Skim http://skim-app.sourceforge.net/index.html


2. The second cost, it is a little more polished though http://www.smileonmymac.com/PDFpen/


Myself, I usually prefer name brand over third party but I agree with the thread poster here, acrobat is packed with too much stuff making it too slow for doing simple PDF edits.
 
I have the same problem.

PDFs I view online automatically open with it and it's annoying because I prefer preview yet I don't know how to change it.

*sigh*. I would uninstall it if I knew that it wouldn't bugger up CS3 somehow.
 
Acrobat 8 pretty much sucks. I have Acrobat 8 Professional for both Windows and Mac, and its equally as slow on both platforms. Preview in Leopard is 10 times faster.

And to Keehun - you don't need Acrobat to view PDFs in-line in Safari. Safari does a very nice job of handling PDFs on its own, especially in Leopard.
 
BlakTornado said:
I have the same problem.

PDFs I view online automatically open with it and it's annoying because I prefer preview yet I don't know how to change it.

*sigh*. I would uninstall it if I knew that it wouldn't bugger up CS3 somehow.
Click to expand...

Try going to /Library/Internet Plug-ins and trash the Adobe PDF Viewer plugin, then restart Safari?
 
xraydoc said:
And to Keehun - you don't need Acrobat to view PDFs in-line in Safari. Safari does a very nice job of handling PDFs on its own, especially in Leopard.
Click to expand...

Right. I did trash that annoying plug in. Now, I get the regular Safari's viewer. Yes, go ahead and delete that. You really don't need it. Safari does a better job of it.
 
nsbio said:
Try going to /Library/Internet Plug-ins and trash the Adobe PDF Viewer plugin, then restart Safari?
Click to expand...

Thanks. Works perfectly.

While in some aspects I prefer Acrobat 8's browser plug-in capabilities, I think that it's slow and clunky, and that the default is better because I can press the button to open it in preview, which is better.

So thanks for that :)
 
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