Acrobat scrolling is incredibly laggy and slow

[acrobatty_user]

Hello,

For the last two years I have had consistent problems with Acrobat Pro DC being extremely slow/stuttery while scrolling, highlighting, commenting on a document. This happens no matter what the size of the PDF is from less than 1 MB to 10+ MB. It appears to be very poorly optimized compared to other professional software titles which all run smoothly on macOS: Word, Excel, Pages, Numbers, etc. I have tried deleting the prefernce files outlined in other topics, which did nothing to alleviate the issue at all.

My computer is a relatively powerful: 2016 15-inch MacBook Pro connected to an eGPU with Radeon RX 580 and an LG 4K monitor (more than enough power to edit PDFs). I am running the latest version of Adobe Acrobat Pro DC and macOS Mojave and have never seen these issues alleviated by two years of updates.

Given the cost of this software, I would really appreciate some help from Adobe's support team, as well as an indication that they are planning on doing something about what is clearly an egregious lack of concern over glaring optimization issues. Having spoken with other macOS users (I work in I.T.), this is not merely an individual user issue but a broader problem plaguing Adobe Acrobat in general.

P. S. I have disabled the Show Online storage while opening and saving files, as suggested in other threads to no avail.

[Katie5FE6]

Our entire office has this problem with Acrobat on MacOS. Scrolling through more complex drawings (e.g. archiectural) or documents with comments seem to freeze the program entirely. Even migrating to a brand new, powerful iMac hasn't resolved the issue, yet my 8-year-old PC laptop doesn't have this issue.

None of the solutions below have worked for us, and we're getting tired of reading everything in Mac Preview.

The problem started with Acrobat X out of the blue, yet still persists when we upgraded to Acrobat Pro DC. It's been years Adobe—time to fix this.

[k3mike]

I agree entirely with your assessment Katie.  We've been struggling with laggy Acrobat Pro DC performance for a long time.  It did seem to work better before Acrobat X.

I'm trying to prepare a proposal for a project and the drawing set is 235MB, which I'll admit is a large file, but my machine was built to handle things like this all day long.  

We pay a lot of money for our Adobe software products every year and this totally unacceptable that I have to search forums trying to find answers to make your product do what it's supposed to do.  There shouldn't be any "custom resolutions" or settings required to scroll through a PDF document.  

NOTE: I searched for this forum topic and typed this entire post while the stupid beach ball continues to spin on the PDF that I'm trying to review. 

I have a 2017 iMac 5K with 4.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7, 64 GB RAM, Radeon Pro graphics card, and a Solid State Drive.  The file is local on my machine, and I have a very fast network connection.  

It's still spinning.

[GIS-ORRSC]

I have a new pwerful PC and I'm experiencing the same issues. 

[mr51705833]

I just tried one of the other solutions on this page....where they said to drop the resolution to 100 pixels / inch.  Instead I went down to 25 pixels / inch and it seems alot better now.  Just a bit blurry when panned out.

Try it.

[spencerCP]

I never had any issues with this until this week.  I have a dell desktop for doing cad and have used this software for three years and have not had this issue.  All of a sudden i can't scroll through the pdf files.  Like mentioned previously it doesn't matter the size.  I work with lots of multiple page files so it incredably frustraiting. 

I've tried the suggestions in this thread and nothing has worked.

[rogerd9949835]

Did the "Read Mode" maneuver and the "Change display" maneuver, 

to no avail.

But closed and reopned acrobat, and the scrolling is no normal again.

Whether the maneuvers mattered I'll never know.

[default4xvqugrpj0dv]

Hi, I just suscribed for Adobe Acrobat Pro DC and have the exact problem I have an Macbook air 2021

It seems that its been ongoing for years and Adobe cant fix it for Macbook users? 

I have the 2021.007.20091 version

[radfordd83207392]

I'll echo what everyone else is saying. Adobe Pro DC is horrible when it comes to scrolling and trying to work with a PDF. So much lag and choppiness to the scrolling and paging through a document. I hate it. Using the Mac Preview program until Adobe fixes this issue. It's not the user, it's Adobe. Fix it already!

[Yosenechal]

Followed your counsel and used Preview. Trying to decode why Acrobat was laggy, let alone the lags in my ability to work led to massive losses of productivity. I felt like an Olympic skater when I used Preview on iMac. Thanks!

[andrews11502512]

Sure. I assume Adobe just isn’t interested in figuring out a solution. It doesn’t even acknowledge the problem, which people have been reporting for years.

Andrew

[Palamont]

I'm facing the same issue as well - using Macbook Pro 2016 (15 inch) and Macbook Air M1 (2020) but both facing the same scroll laggy/jittery problem. I can't read the pdf for a long period without feeling giddy.  

However, on my android phone, the reading experience is smooth. 

[andrews11502512]

Is there any chance Adobe will fix this fundamental problem? I have not been able to scroll smoothly for years, and I have several high-end Macs.  Preview scrolls fast and smoothly.  What is the point of a PDF program if its main function doesn't function?

[DeepakArora79]

Same scrolling issue as everyone mentioned here on both of our Macs -

H/W Config: 2019 MacBook Pro 16", 1TB, 16GB, 8GB Graphics Card and 2021 M1 13" MacBook Pro, 1TB, 16GB.
S/W Config: Acrobat Pro DC 21.7.20096.454274

I wonder when will Adobe realize that people are going to abandon Acrobat for free PDF alternatives. 

[erichenao]

Hey I've too had this problem for a long time as well.
I finally took it upon myself to try and find out what the issue is. I thought to check the preferences, as there are a LOT of them for Acrobat.

Go to the Catagories and find Page Display. Click/select it.

Now on the left you should see one section called Rendering. After checking these off and on, restarting the app, and opening different types of PDF's, (Word converted files, Auto CAD converted files, InDesign multipage docs) for ME the slow down was cause by the "Use local fonts" option. Checked it OFF and now Acrobat works like a champ.

If I have any other problems in the future with the speed of Acrobat working, this will be the first place I'll look.

Hope this helps!

Eric

[erichenao]

Sorry meant to say, its on the RIGHT side after you click on Page Display. I turned the various options on and off. The picture attached has the options set that worked for me.

[Katie5FE6]

Thank you for the suggestion erichenao!

I also chose to deselect "Smooth line art" and "Use page cache" in my instance, in addition to deselecting "Use local fonts". Although I still get a bit of lag with heavier architectural drawings, it's mildly tolerable and eventually loads.

It's unfortunate that Acrobat has grown into bloatware and still can't keep page with free alternatives like Mac Preview. Alas.

[k3mike]

A few months ago I decided to call Adobe support to help me figure out how to resolve this issue.  I was connected with a support tech who seemed confident that he had a solution to resolve my persistent lag issue.  (see my post on this thread back in June 2021)

I was skeptical. 

I gave him remote viewing access to my Mac.  We went into my library folder (and a few others I can't remember) looking for anything Adobe related.  He had me back up a few folders containing "Sys Adobe Prefs" and "User Adobe Prefs".  Then we (happily) deleted everything related to Adobe.  Acrobat, Photoshop, Illustrator, and several other cursory applications and files.

His explanation for wanting to do this was that I had a bunch of cached fragments of Adobe (whatever) and Acrobat was getting gummed up.  Like I said, I was skeptical that it would do much good, but given that I couldn't actually use Acrobat at all, I needed to try.  

After the support tech finished removing things, he said all that was left was to reboot and reinstall Acrobat.  So, he dropped off the phone and I finished the process by installing a fresh copy of Acrobat.  And to my surprise, IT WORKED!  I didn't have to turn off any Acrobat features, adjust my resolution down by whatever, or deselect any local fonts.  For the first time in years, Acrobat performed like any reasonable person would expect it would.  No lagging.  I was able to scroll through a 200MB drawing with ease.  

I wish I could provide an exact description of the process we took to get me to Acrobat nirvana, but I didn't take good notes because I sincerely thought I was being punked and after spending three hours on the phone with Adobe my issue would remain.  

This refresh of my Adobe products happened in June 2021 and it's now October 2021.  I would still call my issue "resolved", but I have noticed some lag starting to creep back in.  The lag I experience now would go unnoticed if I wasn't traumatized by knowing how bad it was before.  So I'm very aware; hyper-vigilant even, when Acrobat starts feeling a little glitchy.  

My system is:

iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2017)

Processor 4.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7

Memory 64 GB 2400 MHz DDR4

Graphics Radeon Pro 580 8 GB

macOS Big Sur

Version 11.6 (20G165)

Storage 1TB SSD

Acrobat Pro DC

Continuous Release Version 2021.007.20099

Architecture: x86_64

Processor: Intel

Build: 21.7.20099.455081

AGM: 4.30.111

CoolType: 6.0.0

JP2K: 2.0.2.49666

I doubt that my "fix" would resolve the significant lag problem with Adobe Acrobat that a lot of people on this thread are reporting.  I don't see how a new Macbook Air with the M1 chip would have time to build up the Adobe crud that the support tech cleared off my Mac.  This is still an issue that Adobe needs to resolve.  Because at no point in time should anyone have to write a novel like this on a forum about crappy experiences related to their products. 

I would expect to deal with crappy software experiences from applications developed by a startup, but come on Adobe, you've been doing this long enough.  Get off your butt and hustle to fix this issue before my lagginess comes back full time!

[Palamont]

thanks for sharing your experience. 

[DeepakArora79]

Thanks! It did help and I can see a bit of improvement but but it's still not 100% lag free while scrolling through pages.

[usermac]

It is amazing that this serious bug that blocks productivity has not been fixed after such a long time suffering it.

No problem at all with competing products like PDF Expert for Mac 2.5.18, which scrolls smoothly and fine, even when the search is used.

System:

Acrobat Pro DC - Continuous Release 21.007.20099

macOS 11.6.1 (20G224) Big Sur

iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2017) -  Model identifier iMac18,3 (mid 2017)

4,2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7

40 GB 2400 MHz DDR4

Radeon Pro 580 8 GB

[usermac]

As extra bonuses (great to significantly enhance productivity) not available in Acrobat Pro DC, PDF Expert (as other applications like Microsoft Word for Mac do) does the following:

1. Show updated "File - Open Recent" file names. Amazingly in real time when the application is open and you change the file name in the Finder. Fantastic!

2. Open files from such "File - Open Recent" even if you change their location in the Finder. Again, amazingly in real time when the application is open and you change the file location in the Finder. Fantastic!

Adobe should significantly improve Acrobat Pro DC for Mac!

[usermac]

I forgot another productivity bonus:

3. Show the search hit keywords on side pane, in context, as Microsoft Word does. Such useful feature is also missing in Adobe Acrobat Pro DC for Mac.

[Guest]

My solution - 5$ no-name mini optical mouse ...

That sounds crazy, it makes me angry on Adobe, but it works 100% and at last I do my job ..

I have iMac Pro 2020, and I'm angry that Acrobat worked creepily... None of the easy fixes helped me. Read Me mode also didn't fix anything. And as a researcher, I work with lots and long documents saved in pdf...

Accidentally I added a mini optical mouse, and it made the magic.. Adobe scrolled the document up and down without any lag .. That's crazy, but I believe it could be related to Apples' Magic Mouse (it has no wheel, and maybe Adobe didn't noticed it).

If it works for you - share it.

[Dave__M]

Cool! (who would have thought?)

Glad you found a solution -

Dave

[usermac]

TO ADMINS: it is almost impossible to edit these messages using Safari 15.1 on macOS 11.6.1 (20G224) Big Sur. Clicking to edit does not work most of the times, Really frustrating. On the other hand…

Thanks Andrius22058536dnyk.

Using the Apple optical wired mouse with scroll knob improves to some extent scrolling even when the search window is open, in relation to the horrible experience when using the newer wireless Apple Magic Mouse 2. But far away from optimal.

So, it is clearly a problem of Adobe Acrobat Pro DC and Adobe Acrobat Reader with both such Apple wired and wireless mice. I think that this issue was fixed long ago in Windows, But clearly it is not fixed on Mac. Yet, it has been fixed in applications like PDF Expert which also has all the bonus productivity features that are critical and Adobe Acrobat Pro DC does not have and I described in my messages above.

Adobe should address all these serious issues that block productivity. I have switched to PDF Expert until Adobe fixes all this nightmare.