Adobe Acrobat Reader is *incredibly* slow & keeps hanging

same issue, I'm essentially running a super computer and it's still slow and hangs/not responsive.

Just to let you know I feel your pain and frustration; the replies here from Adobe remind me why I choose to avoid this program, and when I can't, I pirate it. Forever.

I have found a way to fix a problem that I had, but I don't know if this will fix the problem of speeding up Adobe Acrobat Reader's ability to function faster in all aspects. I had an issue where Adobe's search function was incredibly slow to find text within a PDF document or multiple documents. I found a way to make regular searching and advanced searching for text in PDF documents faster to the point where the search results are displayed almost instantaneously. Before this fix, searching could take 2 to 3 minutes to find all the strings of text within a folder containing 5 PDF files that were each about 700 pages in size.

Here are the steps to perform the fix:

1.) Open Adobe Reader directly (do not open it by opening a file such as a PDF to open. If Adobe Reader is already open, close it and make sure it is completely closed [not running in the background]).

2.) Go to Edit > Preferences.

3.) Under Categories: click on Documents.

4.) Under the "Open Settings" make sure that the "Restore last view settings when reopening documents" box is unchecked. If it is unchecked, continue to the next step. If it is checked, uncheck it, click the OK button at the bottom, and restart Adobe again directly.

5.) Under Categories: click on Search.

6.) Under the "Fast Find" area, click on the "Purge Cache Contents" button, then make sure the "Enable fast find" box is checked, and lastly, increase the Maximum Cache Size: to at least 1000 MB. (the default size should be 100 MB).

7.) Click the OK button at the bottom, and restart Adobe again directly.

8.) Open all of the documents you want to search text for and type a string of text that will appear somewhere in the document, or documents. (the searching might take 5 to 10 minutes or longer for big documents or when searching a folder with multiple PDFs).

9.) Wait for the searches to complete.

10.) Go back into Edit > Preferences > Under Categories: click on Documents.

11.) Under the "Open Settings" check the "Restore last view settings when reopening documents" box, and click the OK button at the bottom.

12.) Repeat steps 8 and 9.

13.) Restart Adobe again directly.

(note: increasing the Maximum Cache Size from 100 MB might be optional, I am not 100% sure about this.)

I have different versions of Adobe running on different computers including reagular Adobe Acrobat Reader, and Adobe Acrobat Reader DC. On all of the versions I have, this fix worked for me. I hope this helps.

Get yourself the latest version of Firefox.  Go to "open file" and open a pdf file.  Voila!  Firefox now has a pdf reader.  It's fast and without all the b.s. overhead that Adobe had built into its reader.

I could not agree more this is the most pathetic software on the planet. I am going to delete all the programs in my computer and hope for Adobe Reader being ok by itself. Otherwise this is the most disruptive useless program in history.

2023. Same issue, but with a 12 page document. TWELVE PAGES. It's taking an absurd amount of time to type FIVE WORDS. I am extremely frustrated. 

Adobe Acrobat has been a plague to me for over a decade.  Probably more like a quarter century.  It always locks up and I have to wonder why?  Because it is doing things in the background that require constant connections over the net.  Looks like I finally fixed it.  I went into edit, preferences... and found every form of any setting that had to go to the net or get security settings and disabled them.  For the first time EVER... the app moved smoothly.   I do not like it when aps have to access other sites on the net to run correctly... and this is what plauges Adobe.

MOVED TO THE ACROBAT READER FORUM

Hi Marcush

Hope you are doing well and sorry for the trouble. As described the application is slow and loading the files takes long time.

Is this a behavior with a particular PDF file or with all the PDFs? Please try with a different PDF file and check. If the file is stored on a shared network/drive please download the file to your computer first and then try to open it and check.

What is the version of the Adobe Acrobat Reader DC you are using? To check the version go to Help > About Acrobat and make sure you have the latest version installed. Go to Help > Check for Updates and reboot the computer once.

You may also try to turn off the protected mode for testing (Win Only) Go to Edit > Preferences > Enhanced Security > Uncheck 'Enable protected mode at startup' Turn off the Protected mode and uncheck 'Enhanced Security' > Click OK and reboot the computer once.
Note: Please turn on the security after testing to avoid any security risk.

Also try to reset the Acrobat preferences as described in the help page - https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat/how-to-reset-acrobat-preference-settings-to-default/td-p/4792082 and see if that works.

If it still doesn't work, please try to create a new test user profile with full admin rights in Windows or enable the root account in Mac and try using the application there and check.

Regards

Amal