Acrobat XI on MacBook Pro Retina down severely on scrolling PDFs

[Will_Parker1]

Hi all.

I've seen lots of threads around the net about slow scrolling on macbook and acrobat pro but having tried a few things I am compelled to ask myself for some help.

I have a Retina MacBook Pro 15" from Late 2012 and fully updated Mountain Lion (10.8.3), it has the solid state disk and I hit it with the cpu upgrade and ram upgrades on purchase.

For most applications it is gratifyingly fast - including, I should say much of the CS6 suite.

But when it comes to using PDFs in Acrobat XI it is really almost unusable.  The scrolling hesitation and interface lag for scrolling is horrendus.  It doesn't seem to matter too much if it is a big or small PDF in number of pages or size of images - ie pages of text that are rendered instead of text.

Sure, some of the PDFs I typically use are quite large and long. I am currently getting frustrated over one which is 690 pages but only 5 MB - another 300 pages and less than 2MB but they bog down something horrid.

And the most frustrating thing is that when I open them in Preview they scroll just as fast and cleanly as they do on my iPAD!!!

I have tried reinstalling, I have tried unchecking "run in 32bit" and I have looked at every internal setting I can find to no avail.

Can anyone suggest anything that might be causing it to be so sloooooow on this platform which should eat simple pdf viewing and annotating alive - (and I haven't even got the the point where I would be confident adding PitStop etc)

Best regards,

Will

[AxelGarciaHenriksson]

Hi Ali,

The problem is unsolvable untill Adobe release a new version. For me, those alternatives work while waiting

- use preview,

- use an older version of Acrobat. For me, version X is faster,

- use Acrobat XI on an external monitor.

Good luck,

Kind regards,

Axel Garcia Henriksson

---

Axel Garcia Henriksson

+46 70 374 09 01

[Ali Saleh]

Hi Axel,

Thanks for your response,

I guess I won’t wait till the update I am gonna for another software to edit my pdf files

regards

Ali

[ZazaPeel]

I had the same problem with Adobe Acrobat XI (v. 11.0.06). I contacted Adobe Chat sales support to ask for my money back. They transferred me to Tech Support who offered these steps:

1. Open Acrobat Pro XI.

2. Press Command+K to open the preference window.

3. From the preference window click "page display"

4. Then from the rendering section  select "For Monitor"

5.  Click on ok.

This has solved the problem for me. The Tech guy also said that they are aware of this issue (April 4, 2014). NOTE: I don't have the subscription version.

MacBook Pro 15" Retina

OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.5

[HelloHaggis]

Interesting Zaza. The fix didn't seem to help speed up/smooth out the lag in my scrolling. I've usually tested on just my MacBook but I also have a Mac Thunderbolt display. Interesting enough with our without making this pref change I get no log on the Thunderbolt display but immediate issue if I drag that PDF over to the Retina screen.

Glas to hear they are aware of the issue though! Hopefully that means it might be addressed soon.

[Ali Saleh]

Hello Guys,

Thanks for sharing the updates,

Unfortunately, It didn’t work out on my Macbook 13 retina.

[Jon__aka_nle_]

You know that this issue is only present when using it on a retina display. As you discovered you don't have any issues on your external monitor which is not high-res (retina).

[mooring@live.com]

one month to wait, can it be a little early ?

[Alexander_Zawadzki]

Hey again guys,

Whilst trying to solve *another* problem, the Adobe folks got me to install this hotfix: http://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/product-crash-search-mac.html

It is designed to fix a problem with crashes under Maverics *but* it also seems to make my version of Adobe Pro XI much more responsive. Since you guys are Retina owners, I reckon that the odds are quite good that you're also running Maverics.

Hope it helps...

Alex

[HelloHaggis]

Thanks Alex! Anyone else try this yet? Curious too if you install the hotfix will you need to reinstall to get the application back on track with full release updates. Years ago I had an Adobe hotfix that locked the product on a certain version number intentionaly.

[g_miles]

Why does Luc say that it is HiDPi supported?  Acrobat XI on the Mac does not utilize the retina display.  It is downright awful. 

[AxelGarciaHenriksson]

I am happy to read that Adobe is adressing this issue.

I can confirm that it is the 'retina' display rather than the computer that is the issue - I use the same computer as Will but with an external 'non-retina' display. Acrobat is fast on the external display, slow on the internal one. 'Non-osx-native' graphics, like the comments list, is even slower. Acrobat 10 is in my experience faster, albeit no race winner.

[Maarten Deckers]

Can't believe it's taking Adobe this long to come up with a solution! Acrobat has been useless for months now, yet I'm still paying for my CC subscription. What's up with the acclaimed "Immediate access to new features and updates"?

[C_F_McBlob]

The September 2013 update for Reader and Acrobat will have Retina compatibility changes.

[g_miles]

Just updated; the problem remains unchanged and Adobe has yet to correct it.  Adobe, this has gone on too long.

[Jon__aka_nle_]

According to the release log they should have addressed the retina bugs.

Improve Mac Rendering on Retina hi-DPI displays.

EDIT:

Just installed new update, and first impression is that it seems alot snappier.

[g_miles]

I just installed but no apparent change or improvement in Mac rendering/HiDPi issue is noted.  Pages seem to scroll abit faster than before, but there does not appear to be any visual changes to the HiDPi issue.  Most unfortunate.

[Luc_Leroy]

g.miles:

Can you be more specific?

11.0.04 does support Retina display. PDF pages are rendered at full resolution on Mac that support Retina Display. Can you provide a screen shot?

As mentionned on the other thread I have double checked by installing 11.0.04 from the Adobe web site. Other than some panes and a few icons, everything is rendered in high resolution.

Thanks,

Luc

[bryan_kidd]

I'm not getting the option to upgrade to 11.0.04 at all. Stuck on 11.0.3

I wonder why, when others appear to have it? I just get the message that it's up to date.

[Jon__aka_nle_]

Try and select update from the help menu

[bryan_kidd]

Thanks Jon, got it.

FIrst impressions are good, looks and works much better. Scrolling longer, graphic heavey docs still not smooth, but a huge improvement.

[HelperBee2]

I downloaded the update via the Help menu and get an error that I can't update because something has changed since my initial installation. I reinstalled from my original DMG file, and am still getting the same error. So I have uninstalled and am now reinstalling from my original DMG and then will try updating again. I guess I would have to say I'm hopeful but not optimistic.

[HelperBee2]

Well, I got the update to install, but scrolling is still un-usable. Jumpy, not smooth. I scroll and never know where I'll wind up. Didn't anybody test this even once? Works perfectly in Preview. Unbelievably frustrating!

[Jon__aka_nle_]

I just enabled scrolling to test, and I think it is smoother than it was, but by no means smooth enough.

I usually just have "Single page view" on, so that is no biggie for me. I prefer it that way. You could try that as a temporary fix – if you don't mind scrolling that way that is.

[Luc_Leroy]

Thank you guys for the feedback.

Performance is the next priority for us. With Retina display, we have to render 4 times more pixels! We worked hard to avoid a significant drop in performance rendering these many pixels, and our next developments are focusing on improving performance especially scrolling, zooming in/out, etc.

Thanks,

Luc

[Jon__aka_nle_]

I just noticed that if I press "get info" on Acrobat.app the "open in low resolution" is ticked AND grayed out. Why is this?

Do any of you guys have it checked?