In another thread, this comment was made:

It struck a nerve. I have the same problem opening pdfs in MSIE; there are times that my hard drive starts humming from the exertion, but I can't shut down the download except by invoking Task Manager and closing the browser.

There was a time when Adobe had a really good thing going. The pdf format was quick to load on any platform in any browser. Then, Adobe seemed to catch a bad case of Microsoft Bloat. Succeeding versions got bigger and slower to load, and with no improvements I could see.

At one time, it was faster using an older version of Acrobat, but not anymore (Older files seem okay; more junk in the new files now?). Loading a pdf is slow from my email (Lotus) and even directly from my hard drive. Now, when I have to open a pdf, I tend to leave Acrobat Reader open in case I need it again.

Okay, rant over. Please resume your normal activities. (Well, except that one! That's really disgusting.)

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Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

My company sends just about everything in .pdf format. These computers have a hard time running the necessary productivity software; java or flash slow them to a crawl. So you can just imagine what trying to find a bit of information burried in an un-bookmarked 100+ page .pdf is like. But for them, it's "the wave of the future". Saves the company on printing costs when they can just send us the PDF and make us print it instead. Hooray.

Oh well, at least everything's not still in the unformatted .txt files of yesteryear.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.

While it may be fine for print, it is a disgrace on the screen. The web is the realm of HTML. Period.

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If you're careful enough, nothing bad or good will ever happen to you.

Wha? How'd you know about that? Are you spying on me through the webcam? And it's not disgusting, it's just... different. That's all. There are whole cultures where doing it is perfectly accepted and even France where not doing it at the dinner table is considered rude. More people need to come out of the closet. Equal rights!

You're inhibited, Jim. Inhibited! *bursts into inconsolable tears* Yes. I do it! There. I said it!

If Jerry Lewis impersonation in the privacy of one's own home is wrong, I don't want to be right.

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In Fallout 3, 'happiness' is a warm junkyard dog and a loaded gun. It's mostly the loaded gun.
- Moose's one-line review.

"your going to regret that one. You are now a colonoscope...
- Chrissy, corrupting PraedSt's wish.

I still have a copy of acrobat reader version 4 from about 1997. I've installed it on every machine I have. It's incredibly fast. It looks like you might be able to get it from one of these FTP sites:

http://www.filewatcher.com/m/ar405en...60288.0.0.html

The MD5 sum on my copy (which I downloaded from adobe's website a decade ago) is: 15af48e8db60c76eff7edd03cbf27c06

I've also heard good things about Foxit, but I haven't tried it:
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

Amen.

Nothing like Adobe saying "EXCUSEMEPARDONMENEEDTOLOCKDOWNYOURCOMPUTERSOWECANU SEEVERYSTINKINGRESOURCEYOURMACHINEHASFOR20MINUTESW HILEWELOADOURUTTERLYUSELESSREADONLYDOCUMENT.PLEASE HOLDTHISWILLONLYTAKEANHOURORTWO."

Its one of the reasons I check any document I see and download the pdfs before reading them. The Acrobat Reader and Acrobat tend to be less assinine about system resources.

I bet you I could make a cup of instant ramen in the time it has taken me to load some .pdfs into IE. I am willing to try this experiment...

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- JRR

"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance -- it is the illusion of knowledge." - [Daniel Boorstein]

I'll bet you could make some "from scratch" ramen.

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Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

You could fly to Japan, make some from scratch, fly back home with it and then cook it up!

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Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

I've been happily using Foxit Reader at work. Might be worth a try.

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Nicholas Bostaph
http://NicholasBostaph.com
http://NightscapeCreations.com
http://FantasyMasterOnline.com

I had the opposite problem with Firefox. Older versions of Acrobat Reader were slow to load, slower to exit, and would throw a tantrum if there were any errors in the file. I upgraded to v.8 and now it works as well as can be expected in Firefox (but I haven't tried it in IE).

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"How many times have you gone rooting through your junk drawer, muttering to yourself, 'where'd I put that gun?'"

I want to second/third tofu and Nicholas_Bostaph's nomination of Foxit. It's small (2 MB download), fast, free, and perfectly proficient at everything I need to do with PDF's. Give it a shot.

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"It's over you head now. Time to get some professional help." - My fortune cookie from lunch

Ned Wright's Cosmology Tutorial

Usenet Physics FAQ

Three recommendations from BAUTers who know what they're doing is plenty for me. I've made the swap.

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In Fallout 3, 'happiness' is a warm junkyard dog and a loaded gun. It's mostly the loaded gun.
- Moose's one-line review.

"your going to regret that one. You are now a colonoscope...
- Chrissy, corrupting PraedSt's wish.

Yes, I get very annoyed when a club announces that in future their newsletter is going to be electronic-only, and all they do is send you a PDF version. (One I got a while back had an org chart on the centerfold, which in the online version was of course split right down the middle.)

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

For those using Macs, Preview is much quicker and just as useful most of the time as Acrobat Reader.

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

Good to see a group of fellow BAUTers with the same opinion of .pdf (.pain in the derrière format) that I have.

BTW, Jim, Lotus for email? Does that mean Lotus Notes? If so, you have my complete and unbounded sympathy.

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A person's name, or a mark representing it, as signed personally or by deputy, as in subscribing a letter or other document.

Thanks. Not my choice; it's what the company uses.

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Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

I don't actually dislike the pdf format, it's just Adobe and their completely asinine concept of "let's split every feature out in a separate module so they will take a while to load, then at startup load them all whether the document needs them or not."
Oh, and incidentally, productivity will be measured by how many modules has been added since last release.

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And the "driving on the freeway on a scooter" analogy still holds true because the pilots are sitting in 7 to 30 ton aircraft o' doom and you are running around them in your very own Meatbody, Mark I. Beep, beep.
Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.