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Angel33712719tonb
New Participant
November 19, 2023
Answered

Quality differences when viewing pdf in Adobe Acrobat reader vs browser

  • November 19, 2023
  • 3 replies
  • 3870 views

When working on powerpoint, everything seems high quality and the image is crisp; however once I convert it to PDF, the lines become jarred and jagged looking. I've tried to view the PDF file on my browser (chrome) and it looks great, and I've viewed it from my phone and ipad as well. I'm just not sure why when I open the file itself in the acrobat reader, it just looks way off.

 

In Powerpoint:

 

In PDF reader:

 

 

I've tried to troubleshoot it myself through various means, including:

 

1. Adjusting default resolution on Powerpoint to either 330 dpi or High Fidelity

2. Looking at Preferences > Page Display on the Acrobat Reader and playing around with the settings of smooth imges / smooth line art / enhance thin lines. But it can never match the quality in Powerpoint.

3. Saving as PDF while checking PDF/A compliant box

4. Checking "Standard publishing online and printing" box when converting to PDF

5. Updating Adobe Acrobat reader to the latest version

6. Image on PPT is also JPEG instead of PNG

 

I just don't get why my chrome browser and PPT app and my mobile devices do not have this issue (it looks amazing there) when I try to view the PDF document there, but when I open the file on adobe acrobat reader on my computer there's this issue. Ive tried to look at this on both my laptop and external monitors so I don't think its a hardware resolution issue, plus the quality on my chrome browser looks fine when viewed this way.

 

Appreciate any help I can get!

    Correct answer dina_7592

    I have a very old version of Adobe Acrobat,  Professional 8.0. Some of my pdf screenshots were appearing much smoother in the Chrome browser than in Adobe, similar to your issue. Making the following adjustments in the Adobe Acrobat app in the setting of Edit -> Preferences -> Page Display produced a higher quality image on my monitor.

    1) increasing the resolution of the display

    2) checking "Smooth line art" and

    3) checking  "Smooth images".

     

    Hope this helps 🙂

    3 replies

    D
    dina_7592Correct answer
    New Participant
    May 8, 2025

    I have a very old version of Adobe Acrobat,  Professional 8.0. Some of my pdf screenshots were appearing much smoother in the Chrome browser than in Adobe, similar to your issue. Making the following adjustments in the Adobe Acrobat app in the setting of Edit -> Preferences -> Page Display produced a higher quality image on my monitor.

    1) increasing the resolution of the display

    2) checking "Smooth line art" and

    3) checking  "Smooth images".

     

    Hope this helps 🙂

    Abambo
    Abambo
    Community Expert
    November 24, 2023

    The PDF file seen on my screen:

     

     

    ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer
    Abambo
    Abambo
    Community Expert
    November 24, 2023

    Acrobat is optimizing the view for performance. That means that sometimes (very often) the screen display is not the best.

     

     

    ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer
    A
    Angel33712719tonbAuthor
    New Participant
    November 24, 2023

    So are you saying that it is my monitor resolution issue?

    Abambo
    Abambo
    Community Expert
    November 24, 2023

    No, it's just that Acrobat does not display pixel data at its best quality, but does a cheap scaling. If you have the page at 100% (one pixel on the screen is one pixel in the file), the display will be good.

    ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer
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