Speed up Acrobat 6

mortis42 · Post by **mortis42** » February 28th, 2004, 1:31 pm

FYI,
This work-around works for Acrobat 6 Professional as well. Though there may be a few more plug-ins you will want to add back in depending on what you use Acrobat for.

dewagter · Post by **dewagter** » March 3rd, 2004, 7:25 pm

nosebleed wrote:I think Adobe accidentally released the alpha version of Adobe Reader 6 or something. I had to uninstall, redownload, and install it again because it kept crashing at startup.

Anybody know where I can get archived versions?

--> http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/alternate.html ?

----------------

ps: I use 5.1 with only the EWH32.api and search.api, disabled view in webbrouwser, disabled check webbrouwser settings, disabled splash screen... and I have not found any pdf that wont open, search and print.

I can assure you: It is impossible to time how fast it is because a pdf is opened before your mouse button actually reaches its fully-pressed position (the click is apparently initiated halfway the mouse-button pressing) (3GHzPIV with XP)

dewagter · Post by **dewagter** » March 3rd, 2004, 7:33 pm

oh, I forgot to ask... is there any such trick to speedup FireFox too? ](*,)

peterlairo · Post by **peterlairo** » March 5th, 2004, 3:44 am

alanjstr wrote:http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11041

Find the plug_ins folder and rename it plug_ins_disabled
Create a new folder named plug_ins
Copy the following files from "plug_ins_disabled" to "plug_ins": EWH32.api, printme.api, and search.api

I don't have the "printme.api" file in my Adobe Acrobat 5.0.1 (not just "Reader"). There are about 27 MB(!) of files in my Acrobat "Plug_ins" directory.

Can i use ONLY the two or three files you suggested (and then still be able to CREATE PDF files), or does your trick only apply to the "Reader"?

kozanack · Post by **kozanack** » March 6th, 2004, 3:26 pm

You can obtain older versions, such as 4.0.5, here:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/r ... chive.html

Incidentally, none of the solutions to speed-up Reader 6.0 worked for me. So I downloaded V5.05, but it did not fix the load problem. But V4.0.5 works like a charm. It loads in the blink on an eye.

Post by **BenBasson** » March 6th, 2004, 6:43 pm

http://www.oldversion.com/program.php?n=acrobat
Goes all the way back to version 2.

simplerich · Post by **simplerich** » March 15th, 2004, 7:04 am

Much faster on a P2-300 this way.

Thanks.

jsmozilla · Post by **jsmozilla** » March 17th, 2004, 10:23 am

mqwtm wrote:
Radiowriter wrote:
mqwtm wrote:Does anyone know of a (preferably open source) alternative to Adobe's PDF reader for Windows?

What's wrong with Acrobat? It does what you want and it's free. Why do you need an alternative?
Mainly 'cos alternatives are usually better/faster, and I don't like the built-in advert. Granted, I don't need an alternative, just wondered if one existed.

The major concern with the Adobe reader, and the lack of a good open source alternative, is that Adobe is in control of the reader that is necessary for a huge amount of documentation. For as long as Adobe was a benevolent dictator giving away a good reader for free, life was fine. However, like all companies pressured to squeeze more out of their customers, Adobe has begun to abuse the free reader by including an increasing amount of advertizing. Further, there is no limit as to what Adobe could choose to do in the future - as they have already made the reader 'ad-supported', they are likely to increase advertizing, or perhaps make the 'ad-supported' version unusable to the point where people are practically forced to purchase a reader, and Adobe's prices have never been tame. It is also possible that Adobe could include spyware (I'm sure they would position it as a useful feature, and not as spyware), or force participation in someone's digital rights scheme.

Beyond all these risks is the dependence upon Adobe itself. There have been at least two occasions in the last 15 months where Adobe's web site has been broken such that it has not been possible to download the reader for more than 48 hours on each occasion. You will note that Adobe works hard to prevent anyone making archived copies of the reader available - every link points back to Adobe's own site. You'll note that the links in this forum for archived versions are (almost) all back only to Adobe itself too, so Adobe could choose to make older versions unavailable at any time. Adobe also doesn't guarantee that there aren't time bombs or other restrictions included in the reader, so there is no guarantee that any past, current or future version of the reader will be available. It would also be to Adobe's advantage to re-engineer their standard so that independently developing compatible readers could be illegal in the future, and they wil have by stealth achieved a legal monopoly on what needed to be an open standard.

In short, all it takes is one marketing decision, corporate accounting scandal, or hostile takeover to put the reader out of action and out of (legal) reach. Of the entire computing infrastructure present in most homes and offices, I'll bet there is no other package where there is such an overwhelming dependence on one company - with absolutely no functional alternatives available.

I would love to work with a group to create a credible alternative to the monopoly reader... if we don't, it is only a matter of time before we get whacked on the side of the head and wish we had done something earlier.

jerryctx · Post by **jerryctx** » April 4th, 2004, 2:54 am

Holding down the Shift key after clicking on a PDF also speeds up the load.

brody · Post by **brody** » April 4th, 2004, 6:48 am

jsmozilla wrote:You will note that Adobe works hard to prevent anyone making archived copies of the reader available - every link points back to Adobe's own site.

OldVersion has previous versions of AR for Win available all the way back to v2. They also maintain older versions of lots of other software.

jsmozilla · Post by **jsmozilla** » April 5th, 2004, 4:58 am

brody wrote:
jsmozilla wrote:You will note that Adobe works hard to prevent anyone making archived copies of the reader available - every link points back to Adobe's own site.

OldVersion has previous versions of AR for Win available all the way back to v2. They also maintain older versions of lots of other software.

Thank you for the great link. OldVersion does a wonderful job - but it is only a single source that is easily shut down with a single letter from Adobe's legal department. With an increasingly chilly copyright DMCA climate, I hope the operators of the site are located in a distant country and never have any plans to go near the US. There is unfortunately no right to distribute the software like that - though if Adobe were serious about making us trust their software, they would legally and irrevocably authorize independent distribution of all versions.

With our overwhelming dependence on Adobe, we all exist at the whim of a single software company. Experience has shown that depending on a monopoly software company is bound to end in grief sooner or later.

brody · Post by **brody** » April 5th, 2004, 5:18 am

Using a judicious web search you can probably find v4.05 hidden away in inconspicuous places as well by searching Google for something like "acrobat reader 4 download exe". If that doesn't help try MSN Search. It has been a while since I tried it but if I remember correctly it is there but hard to locate.

Oh yeah, the best place to look if you can't find the version of the Reader you need is on software CDs. For instance any game that comes with a manual in PDF format is going to provide some version of the Reader. So you may already have it.

jetpin · Post by **jetpin** » August 5th, 2004, 1:19 am

I find this very useful indeed!! Since I've just verified it on the Acrobat Reader 6.0.2 CE Full, I may as well share it with you guys...

ver 6.0.2 requires 4 files to be in the PLUG_INS directory:-
EWH32.api
PrintMe.api
Search.api
WorldReady.api

Note that without the WorldReady.api, Search.api cannot be loaded and an error message will pop up, but the reader will still load and you can still view the PDF files. Have not verified what functions exactly will be missing. A good guess will be the seach capability.

So much for now..

jp

ambacher · Post by **ambacher** » October 23rd, 2004, 9:25 am

[quote="alanjstr"]http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11041

Find the plug_ins folder and rename it plug_ins_disabled
Create a new folder named plug_ins
Copy the following files from "plug_ins_disabled" to "plug_ins": EWH32.api, printme.api, and search.api[/quote]

Thank you very much for this intelligent hint! - ambacher

peter.reisio · Post by **peter.reisio** » October 23rd, 2004, 2:59 pm

Wow, that is absolutely friggin' rad.

Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Professional from like a loooottttt of seconds to maybe one or two. Gracias.

Speed up Acrobat 6

Re: Speed up Acrobat 6

Archived Versions of Adobe Reader

How could we trust Adobe, when we can't trust anyone else?

Shift key alternative

Re: Speed up Acrobat 6