[Update] Adobe Acrobat Reader v7.0

[Tim Weaver]

On 22 Dec 2004, Tim Weaver wrote

Yabbut, that's just the .exe installer -- what's the folder size when
you've installed it?

92.5MB in the Adobe folder (nothing but reader) and 288KB in Common Files.
I uninstalled version 6.x first, so that's all version 7 stuff.

 

[Jock Strap]

Foxit is nice
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

Okay, Foxit is a nice PDF reader, yes. It doesn't have a Search
function, which makes it of little use to me personally; BUT, let's
look at the installation size of it compared to Adobe Reader on my
particular system:

Foxit v1.1 = 1.79 MB (1,882,684 bytes)
Adobe Reader v6.0.1 = 43.7 MB (45,904,449 bytes)

What the hell is going on? Why does AR need so much more code?
If that's not an example of BloatWare(tm) I don't know what is!

 

[JoeA]

Only for Win2000 or Xp

 

[ceg]

So you're NOT "just using IE" to view PDFs then.

No, I'm not using Adobe reader either. Did you have a point?

 

[William F. Adams]

``harvey.news'' said:

...I find it hard to believe that there isn't a cleaner, more
concise -- more "elegant" -- way of programming a pdf reader than
throwing everything into it and making it 40+mb.

Well, you could use PDFviewer.app on NeXT/OPENstep. The full download is a
couple of megs including the external tools needed to do things like access
encrypted .pdfs and subsetted fonts and the like.

Your mileage clearly varies, but to me very large programme sizes
usually indicate either sloppy programming or the compulsory piling-in
of features that will never be used by 90%+ of users.

I find Acrobat useful for viewing ebooks &c. (there's a nifty bookshelf feature
in v6 and later which came from Glassbookreader), and distributing bits of my
portfolio.

It comes down to a view that they could do tighter programming if they
tried, and the fact that they don't makes me less than enamoured with
the programme.

Again, why whinge about something you're not paying for?

Use one of the free alternatives:

- Preview.app in Mac OS X
- Ghostscript
- xpdf in Linux / Unix
- Foxit
- PDFviewer.app in NeXT/OPENstep

The list of viewing programs at http://www.pdfzone.com has 41 entries --- not
all of them will be free, but a fair number are.

If it's really so important to you, the .pdf specification is freely available
--- develop your own viewer. Remember though that to match what Adobe Reader 7
makes available you have to provide: font rendering, Unicode character encoding
interpretation, display, encryption, drawing and text editing tools (to support
the annotation facilities), a Javascript interpreter, and on-the fly
colorimetric image adjustment &c.

Adobe did a small pdfviewer, Adobe Acrobat Reader v4 which is still available.

Interestingly w/ Adobe Acrobat 7 there'll be a module available for including
pdf display in third-party applications, so .pdf display may become (almost) as
ubiquitious in Windows as it is in Mac OS X.

William

 

[Harvey Van Sickle]

On 22 Dec 2004, Tim Weaver wrote

Yabbut, that's just the .exe installer -- what's the folder size
when you've installed it?

92.5MB in the Adobe folder (nothing but reader) and 288KB in
Common Files. I uninstalled version 6.x first, so that's all
version 7 stuff.[/QUOTE]

Hmmm; so it's doubled in size from 6 to 7. Think I'll try and pass
on it, and get off my behind to check out some alternatives.

 

[Harvey Van Sickle]

On 23 Dec 2004, William F. Adams wrote

``harvey.news'' said:
-snip-

Again, why whinge about something you're not paying for?

Use one of the free alternatives:

- Preview.app in Mac OS X
- Ghostscript
- xpdf in Linux / Unix
- Foxit
- PDFviewer.app in NeXT/OPENstep

The list of viewing programs at http://www.pdfzone.com has 41
entries --- not all of them will be free, but a fair number are.

Many thanks -- I'll check those out.

Just to clarify, the Adobe thing isn't an all-consuming hatred or
something I lose sleep over. It's really a principle -- which I know
is a hold-over from the days of small hard drives; habits die hard --
that makes me dislike unnecessary clutter on my machine.

I've always stripped out unused stuff -- all those "sound themes" from
Windows>Media that I don't use; swathes of "sample" .bmp images for
things like "photo frames" and "paper textures" from my image editor;
and the more extreme fonts I'll never use (which used to make Word load
a *lot* faster).

It's probably a bit obsessive, but hey -- we all need a hobby!

 

[Rod]

Hmmm; so it's doubled in size from 6 to 7. Think I'll try and pass
on it, and get off my behind to check out some alternatives.

This one could be interesting, it's a 9 Mb download:

http://www.bravaviewer.com/reader.htm

 

[Harvey Van Sickle]

On 23 Dec 2004, Rod wrote

This one could be interesting, it's a 9 Mb download:

http://www.bravaviewer.com/reader.htm

Downloading now; certainly worth a try!

 

[Conor]

Harvey said:

That's my point, though: given that it's meant to present static
documents, it seems like wild overkill to have a 44MB program (the size
of my Acrobat folder) just to view the thing -- not to change it, mind,
just to look at it.

Yes, but you can look at documents which:

- include fonts not installed on your system
- written in scripts which are not supported by your system
- include graphics w/ colour correction / calibration according to profiles on
your system or embedded in the document[/QUOTE]

But thats the whole ****ing idea of PDF in the first place..basically
its like taking a photo of a page. The idea of PDF being that you get
the document exactly as it was intended to be presented.

 

[Weatherlawyer]

I have it but I am damned if I can use it.

 

[/3iff //ullins]

The basic reader download is 12.5MB.

*vomit*

 

[/3iff //ullins]

Only for Win2000 or Xp

the one wise decision they made...

 

[Buz Overbeck]

Downloader's beware. v7.0 requires XP or 2000 only. Don't waste your time
downloading it (like I did) before checking out the system requirments!

 

[Harvey Van Sickle]

On 23 Dec 2004, Rod wrote

This one could be interesting, it's a 9 Mb download:

http://www.bravaviewer.com/reader.htm

I checked this one out -- looks to be a real winner.

Folder size is 14.5mb; it opens really, really,really quickly -- a lot
fewer plug-ins than Acrobat; seems to work fine in my browsers
(Firefox and K-Meleon); and so far it's managed to open everything
I've thrown at it, including a .pdf that insisted on AR 6 rather than
AR 5.

Basically, I've uninstalled Acrobat, and for the next while will try
this as my default .pdf reader.

 

[Jack Purvis]

So far so good. Beats Adobe Reader all ends up for speed of opening.
I've also made it the default for .pdf. Now I'll try it on line.

 

[Harvey Van Sickle]

On 24 Dec 2004, Jack Purvis wrote

So far so good. Beats Adobe Reader all ends up for speed of
opening. I've also made it the default for .pdf. Now I'll try
it on line.

It's working fine on-line for me (using Firefox and K-Meleon).

 

[Antoine]

On 23 Dec 2004, Rod wrote


I checked this one out -- looks to be a real winner.

Folder size is 14.5mb; it opens really, really,really quickly --
a lot fewer plug-ins than Acrobat; seems to work fine in my
browsers (Firefox and K-Meleon); and so far it's managed to open
everything I've thrown at it, including a .pdf that insisted on AR
6 rather than AR 5.

Basically, I've uninstalled Acrobat, and for the next while will
try this as my default .pdf reader.

I made some tests too on a Win XP SP1 machine :

1/ Ghostscript + GSView - current versions
Launch speed : very quick
Ram consumption : ~ 11 MB
Cons : Nag screen to register at each launch

2/ BravaReader - current version
Launch speed : quick
Ram consumption : ~ 24 MB
Cons : the search feature is not user-friendly at all (automatic
resize+focus)

Well, still looking for a decent (fast, nonag, supporting text
search) pdf reader.

 

[Jock Strap]

Okay, Foxit is a nice PDF reader, yes. It doesn't have a Search
function, which makes it of little use to me personally; BUT, let's
look at the installation size of it compared to Adobe Reader on my
particular system:

Foxit v1.1 = 1.79 MB (1,882,684 bytes)
Adobe Reader v6.0.1 = 43.7 MB (45,904,449 bytes)

What the hell is going on? Why does AR need so much more code?
If that's not an example of BloatWare(tm) I don't know what is!

Well I just found a PDF that crashes Foxit, and also doesn't display
correctly with Brava Reader. So, it's back to Adobe Reader v6.0 for
me. It may be massive, but it least it works with all PDFs.

For those interested, the PDF is found here, underneath the Comments:

http://www.faronics.com/html/request.asp?software=2

C'est la vie...

 

[Antoine]

Well I just found a PDF that crashes Foxit, and also doesn't
display correctly with Brava Reader. So, it's back to Adobe
Reader v6.0 for me. It may be massive, but it least it works
with all PDFs.

For those interested, the PDF is found here, underneath the
Comments: http://www.faronics.com/html/request.asp?software=2

I just downloaded and tested this pdf with 3 different viewers :
- Acrobat reader v5
- GSview current version
- Brava Reader current version
I have not noticed any glitch in viewing this specific pdf with
either of these 3 readers. Could you please indicate what is going
wrong ?

Thanks.