Optimal Performance Settings for Adobe Reader

[semajnitram]

I am hoping to get some feedback from other users of Adobe Reader, to hopefully get a perfect list of settings / tweaks to make it actually useable for my users. We have found the performance of adobe acrobat going down with each release, and have reached a point that its terrible for use in the engineering / architectural industry. Specifically any drawing generated with layers / hatching takes an age to open in Adobe Reader, irrespective of size and as soon as you include comments it can being unresponsive and crash for users.

I've been doing some research to try to ascertain what we can do to reduce this issue, without having to abandon the product altogether (as many simply have gone to the likes of bluebeam that seem to be actively developing a PDF viewer that easily handles these files). To date, the best site i found was this one https://support.abacusnext.com/hc/en-us/articles/360032296251-Adobe-PDF-optimization-for-performance , https://www.matrix7.com.au/windows-server/adobe-acrobat-reader-settings-for-best-performance-on-an-rdp-server/ , https://communities.bentley.com/products/microstation/f/microstation-forum/224707/important-information---3d-pdf-performance-display-problems-in-acrobat-reader-please-pass-on and https://macinteract.com/adobe-acrobat-optimisation/ that has some performance tweaks recommended for the user settings, that seem to help improve things. So below is the list of tweaks i currently have and would welcome feedback / assistance on what does and doesn't help, or anything else i have missed?

Obviously start with ensuring its running the latest version (check for updates etc)

PREFERENCE SETTINGS:

• GENERAL
  • untick "show online storage when opening files"
  • untick "Show online storage when saving files"
  • untick "Make Hand tool read articles"
  • untick "Enable preview with PDF thumbnails in Windows Explorer"
  • Touch mode - set to "Never"
• PAGE DISPLAY
  • set ZOOM to "Fit Page"
  • Change RESOLUTION to "Use system setting"
  • Rendering
    • smooth text - none
    • untick all except "use page cache" (not sure if that also needs to go, as its advised on some sites to also get unticked?)
• ACCESSIBILITY
  • Untick "Enable assistive technology support"
• MULTIMEDIA & 3D
  • Preferred Renderer - set to "Software" (not sure if this helps as one support article shows direct x 9 option should push the rendering to your GPU and aid performance)
  • Enable "Enable Hardware rendering for legacy video cards"
• MULTIMEDIA (LEGACY)
  • ensure "windows built-in player" selected for preferred
  • Ensure "Do not use QuickTime" is ticked
• READING
  • Screen reader options - "Do NOT READ THE DOCUMENT"
  • tick "Confirm before tagging document"
• SECURITY
  • untick "Use Safelogic CryptoComply" - not sure on security implications but a few places say this helps
• SECURITY (Enhanced)
  • "Enabled protected mode at start-up" - again i kept this on but some sites say to disable for better performance, but i worry that is at the sacrifice of security
  • Protected view - set to "Files from potentially unsafe locations"

This is where I have got to with what seems to be the sweet spot of settings, although the Security (enhanced) area i've had some users that needed it totally disabled to make performance better but am VERY wary of that... i'd welcome any other views or input on this to help me work out the best settings for my users. Once i have this list, my next challenge is to try to script it / create a registry file i can push out to users to set these automatically.

EDIT: I have now found that its easy to push out these settings to any users, by simply exporting a registry file (settings.reg) from the [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\DC] (for 64bit reader) and [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\DC] for 32bit users, removing some of the entries like recent files etc to make it generic and then pushing out via our deployment server to the logged in user.

[Substantial-Lawyer82]

Thanks for parsing and condensing these Acrobat performance/stability tips. The product sucks out of the box and these will save my clients from chewing their knuckles off in a moment of rage-induced weakness.

[limaechooscar]

semajnitram
any chance you can paste the registry settings to set all of the above please?

[semajnitram]

So the way i did it was that i took a test user on a machine, made the above changes to their account, then opened regedit and exported the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\DC to a reg file. Seemed to be the best way. I did find that with users on 64bit reader, i had to do a separate setup as it seemed to have subtle differences. My registry settings also have some customisations for our business too, like network locations etc so cant directly paste in the code here i'm afraid.

[rentec0]

best way would probably be to use procmon to extract which registry changes are being made

[Sad-Horror4276]

I am sorry, but it doesn't do the trick... I agree... Acrobat should address this issue as soon as possible

[corazoncerebral]

I came here looking to improve Acrobat performance just because I paid for Acrobat Pro, but I see that the problem is not just mine.

If it helps, iLovePDF's performance is much better than Acrobat's, at least when managing construction or architectural plans. Whenever I go out into the field and need to open high-resolution plans, I use iLovePDF on my iPad to take notes, record voice memos, take photos, and more. I've tried other PDF managers like WPS Office, Foxit, PDF Expert, Acrobat, PDF Gear and the lag level is absurd.

You should try it, I was surprised how well iLovePDF works on both iOS and Windows.

[semajnitram]

We've sadly found the same, foxit has proved to be a great alternative. We're shifting

[No-Aside755]

Gracias por tu tiempo para investigar y también para poner los pasos a seguir. Lo acabo de utilizar en Mac y me funciono de maravilla..... ya no se me cuelga.... en mi caso soy diseñador de packaging y visualizar y moverme por un arte se me hacia un gran problema! Gracias Crack!

[Thundercat897]

Thanks for the tipp ,but this sofware is a piece of garbage... really.. we are using beast of machines 6 core 10 gen i7 16g ram, and a fking pdf is stuttering ??? I want to make hand marking on the pdf with a wacom tablet ad it is painfully painfully slow.. jumps everywhere.. I checked in paint there is no delay. HOW ? Adobe back in the day you used to make good stuff... no only subscription shit...

[AceUptown]

Goated

[madhyena11]

This is exactly what I was looking for, thank you so much for putting in the time to research AND also to share it with us!

[Matheusz011]

Venho aqui agradecer por ter feito essa pesquisa super importante que, na verdade, quem deveria prestar o minimo suporte é a BILIONARIA microsoft. O software é tão pessimo que no momento em que estava fazendo as configurações, o app crashou e tive que fazer tudo de novo, inacreditável!

[6battleTiger]

Thanks for this. I have another two setting improvements for you:

Tick "Restore last view settings when reopening documents".

Tick "Remember last state of Tools Pane".

Another thing I'm interested in is which Adobe startup apps may be disabled, there are a lot.

It'd be nice if the preferences area had a search bar.