Acrobat Pro DC - Performance

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
November 6, 2020
3 replies
834 views

I have a brand new, top end 2020 iMac with 64gb RAM, and I use A/Pro DC to measure PDF's for take offs on construction drawings.

Typical files are 2-20mb, usually with multiple layers.

The issue is I had was my Mac Pro 2009 which I've used for 11 years and the performance was avaerge and a little frustrating in recent years so I upgraded my desktop to the above.

The issue now is thats the performance is no better if a little worse. simple zooms in/out and panning takes multiple seconds with regular hangs and watching the beach ball spin and play catch you, some time for 5-10 seconds.

I called Customer Service at Adobe and they were of no help, one advisor said this was normal, this can't be normal surely?

To rule out the obvious all software/hardware is fully up to date.

This topic has been closed for replies.

Dov Isaacs

Legend

I've received the file, analyzed it, and responded via private message.

The bottom line is that the sample file that I received from Leigh was over 10 megabytes in size of which 99.9% was line segments or simple polygon fills, probably well over 1 million of these. It took over 12 seconds to display the single page on an exceptionally high-end Windows system with enough compute resources to choke a fleet of horses!

The output was from some CAD package under Windows that really did nothing to optimize its output. Even the text was turned into vectors. This is not under the control of any Adobe software.

Upgrading hardware won't help in these circumstances and there is nothing that Adobe can do in terms of engineering Acrobat to significantly improve performance for what I can best describe as “pessimized PDF” …

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)

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Leigh Chatwin2Author

Participant

Dov,

I appriciate your time and input, given my industry of work the original file format would have most likely come from CAD or similar.

At least I know why its not working and that its not any problem my end.

Thank you agian.

Dov Isaacs

Legend

The issue could also be the contents of the PDF files in question.

A PDF file might by “only” 2 to 20 MB in size, but if they are particulary complex, especially if there is significant use of transparency, very large numbers of disconnected line segments, etc., performance could easily be worse than if you had a 1 GB PDF file that was not at all graphically complex. (Yes, I've routinely and successfully deal with gigabyte PDF files without performance problems!)

Perhaps if you can share one of these files, we can ascertain whether the content (and perhaps which content) is problematic. (You can also send me a link via private message to such a sample file if you are concerned about public exposure of same - Adobe will keep the file confidential!)

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)

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Leigh Chatwin2Author

Participant

Dov,

Good morning, thank you for your response. Not an expert but the "transparency, very large numbers of disconnected line segments" does appear to be reflective of my typical files used.

More than happy to forward sample file, which i've never done before via this forum but I'll try now.

Thanks in advance.