Acrobat Reader - Fonts appearing jagged/pixelated (but fine in browsers)

[fariya_yousaf]

Hi everyone,

I'm hoping someone can help with a frustrating display issue I'm seeing in Acrobat Reader on my Windows 11 machine.

I've noticed that the text in many of my PDFs appears jagged and slightly pixelated. It's not unreadable, but it's very harsh on the eyes, especially compared to how crisp it should be.

The strange part is:

1. If I open the exact same PDF file in Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge, the fonts are perfectly smooth and render correctly.
2. The problem seems to be with all fonts, not just one specific type.

I've already gone into Preferences > Page Display and my "Smooth Text" setting is set to "For Monitor." I have tried switching this to "None" and back, and have also tried the other options, but it makes no difference.

My graphics drivers are up-to-date, and my system (i7, 16GB RAM, SSD) and high-resolution display (1920x1080) are more than capable.

It seems to be an issue specific to Acrobat's rendering engine. Has anyone else experienced this? Is there a different setting, perhaps related to 2D graphics acceleration or a cache, that I should be checking?

Thanks for any ideas.

Fariya

[creative explorer]

@fariya_yousaf you've done alot for checking the graphics hardware and drivers to preferences. The next likely area to investigate is the 2D graphics acceleration. To check this, try going into Preferences again, but this time navigate to the 3D & Multimedia section (even though it's 2D text, this is where Acrobat often bundles relevant settings), or look for a specific Rendering or Graphics subsection under Page Display or General. Look for a checkbox that mentions "Use 2D graphics acceleration" or something similar. Try disabling this option completely, closing Acrobat, and reopening your PDF. Sometimes, Acrobat's attempt to use hardware acceleration on certain Windows configurations can actually degrade the font rendering, leading to that jagged, pixelated look you're seeing. If that doesn't work, one last thing to check is under Preferences > General for an option to "Restore defaults" or clear the cache, as a corrupted configuration file might be causing the rendering glitch. Hopefully, disabling that acceleration setting will clear up the visual headache!