I cannot open files in 32-bit Acrobat Pro DC that were optimized in 64-bit Acrobat Pro DC

[basia2m29830715mw5u]

I got a new laptop with 64-bit Windows 11, RAM 32 GB, 32-bit Adobe Acrobat Pro DC. I know it is not supported anymore. I cannot open PDFs optimized on my old laptop with 64-bit Adobe Acrobat Pro DC in Windows 10. I still can opend much bigger PDFs created in ArcMap but I cannot optimized these PDFs in 32-bit AAPro DC on my new laptop.

My whole agency got updated with 32-bit AA Pro DC a year ago and then the problem started. I know now it is the problem of 32-bit versus 64-bit app. I figured it out after I got a new laptop.

More than a year ago I was a dinosaur still using Acrobat Pro 10 and never had problem with people who were using 32-bit Acrobat Pro DC.

What solution do you suggest? Made everybody install 64-bit? What about customers with 32-bit AA who want be able to open optimized PDFs?

 Thank you!

[Amal.]

Hi @basia2m29830715mw5u 

Hope you are doing well and sorry to hear that

Is this an issue with a particular PDF file or with all the PDFs? Please try with a different PDF file and check.

Do you get any error messages when you try to open the files? If yes, please share the screenshot of the same for a better understanding.

What is the version of the Acrobat DC you are using? To check the version go to Help > About Acrobat and make sure you have the recent version 23.01.2017x installed. Go to Help > Check for updates and reboot the computer once.

Try to repair the installation from the help menu (Win Only) and see if that works.

Also, try turning off the protected mode for testing, go to Edit > Preferences > Enhanced Security > Uncheck 'Enable Protected mode at startup' > Click OK and reboot the computer.
Note: Please turn on the security after testing to avoind any security risk.

You may also try to reset the Acrobat preferences as described here https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-discussions/how-to-reset-acrobat-preference-settings-to-defau...

Let us know how it goes

Regards

Amal

[basia2m29830715mw5u · Accepted solution]

Thank you for your reply. I did several tests this week and I have more understanding about what is going on.

My new laptop - 64-bit Windows 11, RAM 32 GB, 32-bit Adobe Acrobat Pro DC continuous release version 2021.005.20058

My old laptop - that I still have and use - 64-bit Windows Pro 10, RAM 64 GB, Acrobat Pro64-bit, continuous release Version 2023.001.20174 installed a year ago,

before I was using Adobe Acrobat 10 and never had problems with optimized PDFs, also users of newer AA could open without problems.

For years I’ve been using the same process of PDF creation, export PDF from ArcGIS at 650 DPI resolution and optimize in Adobe Acrobat with following settings, reduced color image to 450 DPI, Average Downsampling, JEPEG-medium compression. It worked in AA10 without problems. A year ago when I was upgraded to 64-bit AA Pro DC, people with 32-bit AA Pro DC couldn’t open optimized PDFs.

A month ago I got a new laptop with 32-bit AA on 64-bit Windows.

This week I did tests with three PDFs exported from ArcGIS from different projects of different sizes

My new laptop

1) 163 MB of 650 resolution

2) 91 MB of 650 resolution

3) 43 MB of 650 resolution

The huge ArcGIS-exported PDfs opened and zoomed with no problems on my new laptop

I optimized them to 350 DPI for color image and the sizes got a lot smaller

1) 37 MB

2) 15 MB

3) 7 MB

and I opened and zoomed them on my new laptop with no problems.

When I optimized them to 400 DPI, the sizes were

• 39 MB
• 21 MB
• 8 MB

They either opened but I couldn’t zoom in and got a message “There was an error while reading a stream” or they didn’t open and I got a message “Out of memory”.

Every map optimized with setting greater than 350 got this problem.

My old laptop

Everything optimized at 400 DPI (bigger maps), 450DPI (smaller maps) or lower opened and zoomed in without problems.

My conclusion is that 35-bit AA DC cannot opened bigger files although it can process them. 32-bit apps use less avilable RAM than 64-bit ones.

I found on Adoobe website this info

Starting January 2023, Adobe Acrobat and Acrobat Reader will no longer support 32-bit operating systems, including product and security updates. Adobe strongly recommends that you keep your security updates current.

What do you think?

Thank you!

basia