How to have Acrobat perform OCR in the background?

[adwul62]

Acrobat Pro 2020 is performing an OCR. As it is a large file, it takes quite a while. All that time it is taking a significant part of my screen: the minimize button doesn't work. All the time this 'wrist watch' is showing, making any resizing close to impossible.

Is there any way to solve this?

that aside,  during this this OCR task, I obviously can't open another pdf (will get some DDE error or something)

Thanks.

[try67 · Accepted solution]

If you're on Windows try Win+D to minimize the application and continue having it run in the background.

And no, you can't open any other PDF files while this is happening.

[adwul62]

THANK you! Indeed, that worked out fine. Obviously I wasn't aware of this trick.
Sadly, Acrobat can not run a 2nd session. Well, so be it.

Thanks again.

[Bernd Alheit]

You can start a 2nd session with the option /n of acrobat.exe.

[adwul62]

Thanks.
The thing is that Acrobat is running and performing an OCR task.
I go on, browse on Internet, download some PDF and open it, or even open it directly, without saving.... oops!
Or ... as another example, I need to open a PDF from HDD.
I was hoping Acrobat would be 'clever' enough to detect a running task and hence it would open the file automatically, in a separate session  / panel or so.

[gary_sc]

As far as reading another PDF while Acrobat is cranking away, you could download some free PDF reader for this if all you want to do is to read the PDF.

[adwul62]

I have found a (relative poor) workaround: my Explorer replacement (Opus) can show the PDF in a preview mode.
So I can use that, after minimizing Acrobat.

[Off topic]
For a moment I considered installing Acrobat Reader, rather than an alternative 'free' PDF viewer.
I wasn't sure though whether it would results in 'conflicts and/or unexpected effects' of some sort, due to Acrobat already installed / associated to PDF.  
Anyway, I went over to the reader downloads and it showed Acrobat Reader 'DC'. Whilst still using a good-old non subscription based Acrobat-version (non-DC) I got puzzled as to why 'DC' was/is added to the reader.
AFAIK, to me, 'DC' (Document Cloud) = '$$'  i.e. subscription based product, offering cloud based storage.
Could only but conclude that Adobe simply added 'DC' to all their products, for uniformity sake... (??)

[gary_sc]

Try67, is there anything comparable on the Mac for this Win+D option?

[try67]

Sorry, I'm not a Mac guy so I don't really know of all the "hacks" that are available there...

[gary_sc]

I'm not a Windows guy so I didn't even know that was possible! :>)

[try67]

Don't feel bad, most people don't know all of these built-in shortcuts... From time to time it comes in handy, though! Like Win+E to open Windows Explorer, or Win+F to open the Find app.

[try67]

Although I tried Win+F now and it opened some Feedback tool... Damn.