Best PDF viewer?

[David L. Jones]

I've finally had a gut-full of Acrobat reader, it just goes from bad
to worse. It used to be excellent but now I can't stand it. Damn thing
locks up all the time (esp when shutting down Windows) and generally
screws things up. And the browser plug-in is borderline useless, which
makes viewing 50 datasheets a day a real pain.

What are the alternatives people are using?

Note, I'm talking about a PDF *viewer*, not a PDF creator.

Thanks
Dave.

 

[Martin Griffith]

On Fri, 16 Nov 2007 00:41:46 -0800 (PST), in sci.electronics.design
"David L. Jones" <altzone@gmail.com> wrote:

I've finally had a gut-full of Acrobat reader, it just goes from bad
to worse. It used to be excellent but now I can't stand it. Damn thing
locks up all the time (esp when shutting down Windows) and generally
screws things up. And the browser plug-in is borderline useless, which
makes viewing 50 datasheets a day a real pain.

What are the alternatives people are using?

Note, I'm talking about a PDF *viewer*, not a PDF creator.

Thanks
Dave.
foxit is fast no obvious bugs

Martin

 

[Ross Herbert]

On Fri, 16 Nov 2007 00:41:46 -0800 (PST), "David L. Jones"
<altzone@gmail.com> wrote:

I've finally had a gut-full of Acrobat reader, it just goes from bad
to worse. It used to be excellent but now I can't stand it. Damn
thing
locks up all the time (esp when shutting down Windows) and generally
screws things up. And the browser plug-in is borderline useless,
which
makes viewing 50 datasheets a day a real pain.

What are the alternatives people are using?

Note, I'm talking about a PDF *viewer*, not a PDF creator.

Thanks
Dave.

I can't say that I've had the sort of problems with Adobe Reader that
you are experiencing. It always works fine on my computer.

 

When ecvaluating alternarives to Adobe Acrobat Reader, be sure to test
the ability to save a PDF to disk and retrieve it later.

--
Guy Macon
<http://www.guymacon.com/>

 

[Jan Panteltje]

On a sunny day (Fri, 16 Nov 2007 00:41:46 -0800 (PST)) it happened "David L.
Jones" <altzone@gmail.com> wrote in
<7e29ba7e-b83b-4c8c-9fb4-6c6eb3fc1606@s8g2000prg.googlegroups.com>:

I've finally had a gut-full of Acrobat reader, it just goes from bad
to worse. It used to be excellent but now I can't stand it. Damn thing
locks up all the time (esp when shutting down Windows) and generally
screws things up. And the browser plug-in is borderline useless, which
makes viewing 50 datasheets a day a real pain.

What are the alternatives people are using?

Note, I'm talking about a PDF *viewer*, not a PDF creator.

Thanks
Dave.

Linux, xpdf.
Starts up in about 1 second (try that with Adobe), and never complains
about 'non existing Chinese fonts'.

 

[Eeyore]

"David L. Jones" wrote:

I've finally had a gut-full of Acrobat reader, it just goes from bad
to worse. It used to be excellent but now I can't stand it. Damn thing
locks up all the time (esp when shutting down Windows) and generally
screws things up. And the browser plug-in is borderline useless, which
makes viewing 50 datasheets a day a real pain.

What are the alternatives people are using?

Note, I'm talking about a PDF *viewer*, not a PDF creator.

Have you tried 'Adobe reader speedup' ? It stops pointless parts of it from
loading and improves response considerably.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Office-tools/PDF/Adobe-Reader-SpeedUp.shtml

Graham

 

[mpm]

On Nov 16, 5:26�am, Ross Herbert <rherb...@bigpond.net.au> wrote:

On Fri, 16 Nov 2007 00:41:46 -0800 (PST), "David L. Jones"



altz...@gmail.com> wrote:
I've finally had a gut-full of Acrobat reader, it just goes from bad
to worse. It used to be excellent but now I can't stand it. Damn
thing
locks up all the time (esp when shutting down Windows) and generally
screws things up. And the browser plug-in is borderline useless,
which
makes viewing 50 datasheets a day a real pain.

What are the alternatives people are using?

Note, I'm talking about a PDF *viewer*, not a PDF creator.

Thanks
Dave.

I can't say that I've had the sort of problems with Adobe Reader that
you are experiencing. It always works fine on my computer.

I have to Agree with Ross.
No problems here with Adobe Acrobat (reader or writer, or "printer")
Sadly, can't say the same for Adobe Illustrator-10 !! Which soured my
on Adobe products COMPLETELY. (Well, until PhotoShop elements came
out and I had to give up...)

But to your point, ProntoPDF (free download, I think) seems to work
well.
I think it's a writer too.

Before going off the deep end, you might try ripping (uninstalling)
all the Adobe PDF stuff you might have on the machine (older version,
drivers, etc...) and try a re-install. There are just too many
copies in use for this to be a software problem IMO. It is probably
some quirk with your PC., which I agree, is still very
aggrevating.!!

One more thing, if you have external self-sign security features (you
would know if you did), I do know these cause a lot of problems with
Acrobat version higher than 5. Maybe you can turn those features OFF
in your version? Doubtful. Or, screw it, just back to Ver-5, which
by all accounts seems to be the best version ever release. (?) -mpm

 

[TheM]

"David L. Jones" <altzone@gmail.com> wrote in message news:7e29ba7e-b83b-4c8c-9fb4-6c6eb3fc1606@s8g2000prg.googlegroups.com...

I've finally had a gut-full of Acrobat reader, it just goes from bad
to worse. It used to be excellent but now I can't stand it. Damn thing
locks up all the time (esp when shutting down Windows) and generally
screws things up. And the browser plug-in is borderline useless, which
makes viewing 50 datasheets a day a real pain.

What are the alternatives people are using?

Note, I'm talking about a PDF *viewer*, not a PDF creator.

Thanks
Dave.

Foxit reader 20, never looked back.
Yes, adobe reader is really bad, indeed.

M

 

[John Larkin]

On Fri, 16 Nov 2007 00:41:46 -0800 (PST), "David L. Jones"
<altzone@gmail.com> wrote:

I've finally had a gut-full of Acrobat reader, it just goes from bad
to worse. It used to be excellent but now I can't stand it. Damn thing
locks up all the time (esp when shutting down Windows) and generally
screws things up. And the browser plug-in is borderline useless, which
makes viewing 50 datasheets a day a real pain.

What are the alternatives people are using?

Note, I'm talking about a PDF *viewer*, not a PDF creator.

Thanks
Dave.

I use Foxit to view pdf's and CutePDF to make them. Both are
blindingly fast compared to the Adobe bloatware, and neither seems to
have problems.

I don't use Foxit as a plugin, but as an external application
launcher.

John

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

"David L. Jones" <altzone@gmail.com> hath wroth:

I've finally had a gut-full of Acrobat reader,

Version number?

Damn thing
locks up all the time (esp when shutting down Windows) and generally
screws things up. And the browser plug-in is borderline useless, which
makes viewing 50 datasheets a day a real pain.

If you look at the running processes, you'll find that every time
Acrobat 6.x and possibly 7.x exit, they leave ACRORD32.EXE running. My
machines would hang trying to kill this program on shutdown and
failing. There's a check box in the settings to disable this
behavior, but it doesn't work. However, with 8.x, the program does a
clean exit and leaves nothing behind. Also, if you manually kill
ACRORD32.EXE after Acrobat exits, your unspecified version of Windoze
will shut down fairly cleanly.

You might also install User Profile Hive Cleanup:
<http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=1B286E6D-8912-4E18-B570-42470E2F3582&displaylang=en>
Despite the lofty description, it's a bug fix for a bunch of house
keeping that MS forgot to do when shutting down. I've installed it on
everything W2K and XP with great success. However, it doesn't work
with 64 bit Windows or Vista.

In the past, Acrobat Reader was really awful. With 6.x, I was
guaranteed a hung computer within about 10 minutes of running the
browser plugin version of Acrobat. With the release of 8.x, such
problems seem to have gone away. If you're getting hangs, perhaps a
later version might help?

What are the alternatives people are using?

<http://www.foxitsoftware.com>

Also see user sites such as:
<http://www.pdfzone.com>
<http://www.planetpdf.com>
for possible alternatives. See:
<http://www.planetpdf.com/browse_software.asp>
and click on "Viewers" for 57 possible alternatives.

Note, I'm talking about a PDF *viewer*, not a PDF creator.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[JeffM]

David L. Jones wrote:

What are the alternatives people are using?

http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:R3zf5RKJrK4J:en.wikilib.com/wiki/List_of_PDF_software+XPDF+KPDF+Sumatra.PDF+Windows+Acrobat+Ghostview+Foxit+last.modified+Evince+Preview&strip=1#Viewer
(Running Linux gives you more choices than under Windoze.)
..
The *don't load stuff you don't need* tip has been around a long time.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=106650&cid=9076527&mode=nested&threshold=0&simpledesign=1&lowbandwidth=1#9076527
The Softpedia utility the Donkey pointed to automates that.
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache0gPUCvR4fwJ:www.softpedia.com/progDownload/Adobe-Reader-SpeedUp-Download-7932.html+by.disabling.the.majority.of.plugins+logo+speeding.up.Adobe.Reader's.launch.time+trademarks+SRL+that.are.completely.useless.for.most.users+automate.the.process&strip=1
..
An old tip from Lancaster:
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.electronics.design/browse_frm/thread/66da965c1d82f628/4e427bd1959a7714?q=all.but.your.current.page+*-*-pdf-*-that-doesn't-take-forever-to-download+*.having.*.ISP.activate.*.byte.range.retrieval+zz-zz+qq+downloads-invisibly-in-the-background+custom-*-*-PostScript
..
..
To all:
Are there any updates on the Foxit bugs reported by Kolstad
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.electronics.design/browse_frm/thread/2ca85f73b229bf20/3590ab2fd9e987c5?q=Foxit-*-Pro+zzz+1.5MB-footprint+qq-qq+*-toolbar-positions+no-installation-*+printing-not-working-*+several-*-*-bugs+search-*-very-slow
news:124vjidc6ca1vbd@corp.supernews.com
and by Pinnell
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.electronics.design/browse_frm/thread/de3ae668aef746bd/1d0e5431f83bc9a6?q=Foxit+requires-*-*-uninstall-*-Acrobat+*-*-*-get-Foxit-to-integrate-with-FF+zzz+zzzz+*-*-*-*-*-new-window+*-*-*-new-tab+*-*-*-my-nVidia-drivers-wiped-out+*-quality-is-poor+problems-sizing-*-printing-*+crashes+*-*-integration-with-Firefox
news:9cmkj11u7f06431nfnoejpe7v66t895u93@4ax.com

 

[qrk]

On Fri, 16 Nov 2007 00:41:46 -0800 (PST), "David L. Jones"
<altzone@gmail.com> wrote:

I've finally had a gut-full of Acrobat reader, it just goes from bad
to worse. It used to be excellent but now I can't stand it. Damn thing
locks up all the time (esp when shutting down Windows) and generally
screws things up. And the browser plug-in is borderline useless, which
makes viewing 50 datasheets a day a real pain.

What are the alternatives people are using?

Note, I'm talking about a PDF *viewer*, not a PDF creator.

Thanks
Dave.

As others have responded:
Foxit Reader for viewing. While not perfect, I used it 100% for
looking at data sheets. Comes up fast and works well. If you use
Mozilla, there are ways of preventing Acrobat from coming up in your
browser.

I use PDFCreator for my PDF printer driver. Another wrapper around
GhostScript.

---
Mark

 

[john jardine]

"David L. Jones" <altzone@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:7e29ba7e-b83b-4c8c-9fb4-6c6eb3fc1606@s8g2000prg.googlegroups.com...

I've finally had a gut-full of Acrobat reader, it just goes from bad
to worse. It used to be excellent but now I can't stand it. Damn thing
locks up all the time (esp when shutting down Windows) and generally
screws things up. And the browser plug-in is borderline useless, which
makes viewing 50 datasheets a day a real pain.

What are the alternatives people are using?

Note, I'm talking about a PDF *viewer*, not a PDF creator.

Thanks
Dave.

'Foxit'. From a recommend on this group. Use nothing else. Leagues faster
than the poxy Adobe offering. About 0.3 seconds from click to view.

 

[David L. Jones]

On Nov 17, 1:15 am, mpm <mpmill...@aol.com> wrote:

On Nov 16, 5:26�am, Ross Herbert <rherb...@bigpond.net.au> wrote:



On Fri, 16 Nov 2007 00:41:46 -0800 (PST), "David L. Jones"

altz...@gmail.com> wrote:
I've finally had a gut-full of Acrobat reader, it just goes from bad
to worse. It used to be excellent but now I can't stand it. Damn
thing
locks up all the time (esp when shutting down Windows) and generally
screws things up. And the browser plug-in is borderline useless,
which
makes viewing 50 datasheets a day a real pain.

What are the alternatives people are using?

Note, I'm talking about a PDF *viewer*, not a PDF creator.

Thanks
Dave.

I can't say that I've had the sort of problems with Adobe Reader that
you are experiencing. It always works fine on my computer.

I have to Agree with Ross.
No problems here with Adobe Acrobat (reader or writer, or "printer")
Sadly, can't say the same for Adobe Illustrator-10 !! Which soured my
on Adobe products COMPLETELY. (Well, until PhotoShop elements came
out and I had to give up...)

But to your point, ProntoPDF (free download, I think) seems to work
well.
I think it's a writer too.

Before going off the deep end, you might try ripping (uninstalling)
all the Adobe PDF stuff you might have on the machine (older version,
drivers, etc...) and try a re-install. There are just too many
copies in use for this to be a software problem IMO. It is probably
some quirk with your PC., which I agree, is still very
aggrevating.!!

Nope, it happens on every machine I use, even on brand new installs.
Perhaps I'm just a heavier user of PDF's than most.
Note that Acrobat reader works just fine *most* of the time, even if
it is quite slow, but when it doesn't like something it crashes big
time (esp the browser plug-in). Then when you combine it with other
programs and have been opening and closing it all day long, it seems
to hog memory and has to be shut down manually when you try to exit
windows. Again, not in every case, but when it happens it's really
annoying. I also don't care if it's acrobats fault or a combination
with something else, it's acrobat that always locks up.

I've installed Foxit and everything is right with the world again (so
far), the speed difference is just incredible! It doesn't seem to have
a free browser plug-in though, but that's not a big deal.

Thanks.
Dave.

 

[David L. Jones]

On Nov 17, 3:51 am, Jeff Liebermann <je...@cruzio.com> wrote:

"David L. Jones" <altz...@gmail.com> hath wroth:

I've finally had a gut-full of Acrobat reader,

Version number?

Damn thing
locks up all the time (esp when shutting down Windows) and generally
screws things up. And the browser plug-in is borderline useless, which
makes viewing 50 datasheets a day a real pain.

If you look at the running processes, you'll find that every time
Acrobat 6.x and possibly 7.x exit, they leave ACRORD32.EXE running. My
machines would hang trying to kill this program on shutdown and
failing. There's a check box in the settings to disable this
behavior, but it doesn't work. However, with 8.x, the program does a
clean exit and leaves nothing behind. Also, if you manually kill
ACRORD32.EXE after Acrobat exits, your unspecified version of Windoze
will shut down fairly cleanly.

You might also install User Profile Hive Cleanup:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=1B286E6D-891...
Despite the lofty description, it's a bug fix for a bunch of house
keeping that MS forgot to do when shutting down. I've installed it on
everything W2K and XP with great success. However, it doesn't work
with 64 bit Windows or Vista.

In the past, Acrobat Reader was really awful. With 6.x, I was
guaranteed a hung computer within about 10 minutes of running the
browser plugin version of Acrobat. With the release of 8.x, such
problems seem to have gone away. If you're getting hangs, perhaps a
later version might help?

What are the alternatives people are using?

http://www.foxitsoftware.com

Thanks Jeff, that explains the shutdown problem I've always had. I was
using version 8 and still had lots of problems.

I've switched to Foxit and the performance difference is just
incredible, blows Acrobat out of the water, and it's 10 times smaller.
Will trial it and see how it goes.

Thanks
Dave.

 

[Tony]

On Fri, 16 Nov 2007 13:20:01 -0800 (PST), "David L. Jones" <altzone@gmail.com> wrote:

On Nov 17, 1:15 am, mpm <mpmill...@aol.com> wrote:
On Nov 16, 5:26?am, Ross Herbert <rherb...@bigpond.net.au> wrote:



On Fri, 16 Nov 2007 00:41:46 -0800 (PST), "David L. Jones"

altz...@gmail.com> wrote:
I've finally had a gut-full of Acrobat reader, it just goes from bad
to worse. It used to be excellent but now I can't stand it. Damn
thing
locks up all the time (esp when shutting down Windows) and generally
screws things up. And the browser plug-in is borderline useless,
which
makes viewing 50 datasheets a day a real pain.

What are the alternatives people are using?

Note, I'm talking about a PDF *viewer*, not a PDF creator.

Thanks
Dave.

I can't say that I've had the sort of problems with Adobe Reader that
you are experiencing. It always works fine on my computer.

I have to Agree with Ross.
No problems here with Adobe Acrobat (reader or writer, or "printer")
Sadly, can't say the same for Adobe Illustrator-10 !! Which soured my
on Adobe products COMPLETELY. (Well, until PhotoShop elements came
out and I had to give up...)

But to your point, ProntoPDF (free download, I think) seems to work
well.
I think it's a writer too.

Before going off the deep end, you might try ripping (uninstalling)
all the Adobe PDF stuff you might have on the machine (older version,
drivers, etc...) and try a re-install. There are just too many
copies in use for this to be a software problem IMO. It is probably
some quirk with your PC., which I agree, is still very
aggrevating.!!

Nope, it happens on every machine I use, even on brand new installs.
Perhaps I'm just a heavier user of PDF's than most.
Note that Acrobat reader works just fine *most* of the time, even if
it is quite slow, but when it doesn't like something it crashes big
time (esp the browser plug-in). Then when you combine it with other
programs and have been opening and closing it all day long, it seems
to hog memory and has to be shut down manually when you try to exit
windows. Again, not in every case, but when it happens it's really
annoying. I also don't care if it's acrobats fault or a combination
with something else, it's acrobat that always locks up.

I've installed Foxit and everything is right with the world again (so
far), the speed difference is just incredible! It doesn't seem to have
a free browser plug-in though, but that's not a big deal.

Thanks.
Dave.

Same here - it's been the same on many PCs and OSs.
..
Tony

 

[budgie]

On Fri, 16 Nov 2007 19:43:13 GMT, qrk <SpamTrap@spam.net> wrote:

(snip)

I use PDFCreator for my PDF printer driver.

is that the Jaws/5D one? I find it occasionally does funny things with fonts.

 

[ehsjr]

Ross Herbert wrote:

On Fri, 16 Nov 2007 00:41:46 -0800 (PST), "David L. Jones"
altzone@gmail.com> wrote:


I've finally had a gut-full of Acrobat reader, it just goes from bad
to worse. It used to be excellent but now I can't stand it. Damn

thing

locks up all the time (esp when shutting down Windows) and generally
screws things up. And the browser plug-in is borderline useless,

which

makes viewing 50 datasheets a day a real pain.

What are the alternatives people are using?

Note, I'm talking about a PDF *viewer*, not a PDF creator.

Thanks
Dave.



I can't say that I've had the sort of problems with Adobe Reader that
you are experiencing. It always works fine on my computer.

I get the same failure David gets with Acrobat when shutting down.

Ed

 

[Robert Baer]

David L. Jones wrote:

I've finally had a gut-full of Acrobat reader, it just goes from bad
to worse. It used to be excellent but now I can't stand it. Damn thing
locks up all the time (esp when shutting down Windows) and generally
screws things up. And the browser plug-in is borderline useless, which
makes viewing 50 datasheets a day a real pain.

What are the alternatives people are using?

Note, I'm talking about a PDF *viewer*, not a PDF creator.

Thanks
Dave.
I would like reader & creator in one program...anything (other than

Adobe) available?

 

qrk wrote:

Foxit Reader for viewing. While not perfect, I used it 100% for
looking at data sheets. Comes up fast and works well.

And what happens when you try to save that data sheet to your hard disk?