Software, Howto, Tips & Tricks 17 Jun 2006 08:03 pm
How to speed up PDF loading with Adobe Acrobat
By D.W.This is one of my all-time favourite tricks!
It took me far too many years to finally get sick of how slow Adobe Acrobat loads PDF files. It was taking between 10 and 30 seconds to load a single file. How could this be? Well, I found a solution and I highly recommend it to everyone, everywhere - it’s that good.
Every time you run Adobe Acrobat up to 20 plugins are loaded unnecessarily - most users do not need even a fraction of them!
To disable unneeded plugins and make them optional instead, follow these instructions:
- Install the latest version of Adobe Acrobat - you can get it here
- Browse to the plugins folder: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 7.0\Reader\plug_ins
- Create a new folder named Optional
- Move all files from the plug_ins folder to Optional, except EWH32.api, print*.api, and Search*.api
That’s it! Load any PDF in Adobe Acrobat to see the difference! You might want to download free ebooks from an ebook directory to try it out.
on 18 Jun 2006 at 9:56 pm 1.Roy said …
Thank you.
This works like a dream!
Its unlike another Acrobat patcher software that Ive tried a while ago. Now my PDF files load almost instantly.
Loading time of Acrobat Reader has been my pet peeve for a while now. The reader gets bloated with every new version up to the point that people like myself will avoid PDF files whenever theres an HTML version as an alternative. I hope that this hack will work for future versions as well.
on 19 Jun 2006 at 12:04 am 2.sanjay said …
On my installation I did not have any print*.api plugins and I needed the EScript.api plugin as well otherwise I would get a error when opening any pdf file.
/sanjay
on 19 Jun 2006 at 12:09 am 3.Les said …
Wow - this is the best article i’ve read in ages!
on 19 Jun 2006 at 12:27 am 4.Rog said …
@Les, try leaving the house a little more often.
on 19 Jun 2006 at 12:36 am 5.Marc Z said …
Brilliant idea.
I wonder why no one thought of this before.
It really speeds up opening Acrobat to seconds!
on 19 Jun 2006 at 1:21 am 6.GrantTLC said …
Or…simply switch to Foxit Reader, quick and simple to use, without the clutter and cludge of Adobe’s effort.
on 19 Jun 2006 at 1:49 am 7.D.W. said …
Hi guys,
Thanks for visiting - I hope this patch helps! Many more comments can be viewed at digg. Please rate this article - thanks!
on 19 Jun 2006 at 2:05 am 8.Paul said …
I switched to Foxit Reader (I’m not affiliated with them in any way) and was amazed at how much quicker the documents load. They pretty much appear instantly now, which means I no longer fear clicking a PDF by accident. You can get it from Filehippo.com if you’re interested (and I’m not affiliated with them either
on 19 Jun 2006 at 2:10 am 9.sasi kumar.U said …
hey nice article ,
timesaver for all e-book lovers,
grt one
thx,
on 19 Jun 2006 at 2:15 am 10.Fc said …
Cool, any chance you can make this trick work also for Adobe Reader 6?
Thanks
on 19 Jun 2006 at 2:17 am 11.mike said …
EScript.api required for EWH32.api in the default install.
(Adobe Reader 7.0.8)
on 19 Jun 2006 at 2:39 am 12.qfactor said …
GrantTLC, Foxit is fast but it has problems searching for text string. Many ordinary string found with Adobe Reader cannot be found by Foxit. I uninstalled it immediately.
qfactor
on 19 Jun 2006 at 2:46 am 13.web design uk said …
At last!!! You are a saviour
on 19 Jun 2006 at 2:48 am 14.D.W. said …
Hmm, I dont seem to need EScript.api - maybe its for a certain configuration or system? This fix should work for Adobe Acrobat Reader 6 and 7. Some more pros and cons of Foxit and other discussion can be viewed at digg. Regards, DW
on 19 Jun 2006 at 3:24 am 15.Martin said …
Thanks, I tried to trackback the article but I could not find the trackback link for your article.
on 19 Jun 2006 at 3:59 am 16.D.W. said …
Thanks Martin I have added it now. -DW
on 19 Jun 2006 at 4:01 am 17.Alistair Holt said …
For those of us using Macs. You can get to the Plug-ins folder by navigating to Acrobat in your Applications folder and then right-click ‘Show Package Contents’. The Plug-ins folder is inside the Contents folder.
on 19 Jun 2006 at 4:30 am 18.Tiago Serafim said …
I´m using Foxit Reader too… And I have no complains about it… I think that you should try too…
on 19 Jun 2006 at 5:14 am 19.vishal said …
Its happening all in a ziffy..
Its amazing and I never expected this to happen in such a short time..
on 19 Jun 2006 at 5:22 am 20.Mikael said …
I’m using v7.0.7 and I’m having problems. Although EWH32.api is in C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 7.0\Reader\plug_ins (along with Search.api) Acrobat Reader tells me that “There was an error while loading the plug-in ‘EWH32.api’. The plug-in failed to initialize.” when i start the program. Also, the programs hangs everytime i shut it down.
on 19 Jun 2006 at 5:23 am 21.D.W. said …
You know I experienced the same thing in a couple trial runs. I was able to fix it with a reinstall and/or by moving the files in/out of the folder. To be honest Im not 100% sure about what fixed it but try that… you should definitely be able to get it working without a reboot.
on 19 Jun 2006 at 5:34 am 22.Ron said …
What if you use Adobe Acrobat 7.0?
on 19 Jun 2006 at 5:39 am 23.D.W. said …
This works with almost any version of Adobe Acrobat Reader. I’ve tested it on 6 and 7.
on 19 Jun 2006 at 5:59 am 24.Sam said …
Good idea. Similar method works for Acrobat Reader for MacOS X. Acrobat Reader is a Package, so right-click to view package contents. You’ll find the plugins folder there. Remember to make a copy of the plugins folder first.
on 19 Jun 2006 at 6:00 am 25.Worked with only... said …
search.api
on 19 Jun 2006 at 6:01 am 26.Trey said …
This works great.
Regarding Foxit: I use it an love it as well, but it seems to take an eternity to print anything, whereas Adobe prints quicker…it’s the only reason I’ve still got Adobe installed on my machine.
on 19 Jun 2006 at 6:22 am 27.Bethany said …
Great tip! I’ve had Acrobat crash on nearly every computer I’ve ever used at one point or another. (And these are decent computers!) Hopefully this will take care of that.
on 19 Jun 2006 at 7:07 am 28.Sebastian Arancibia Maruri said …
Thnx buddy!!
I probe it with Acrobat 6.0, works flawlessly!
;)
on 19 Jun 2006 at 7:12 am 29.abseeya said …
Does this trick work with a full version of Acrobat?
on 19 Jun 2006 at 7:33 am 30.RJL said …
In Acrobat Reader 5.0, I was able to implement this
hack by keeping only the following files in the
plug_ins folder:
acrofill api
escript api
ewh32 api
search api
selfsign prc
on 19 Jun 2006 at 7:38 am 31.zeth 1337 said …
Tried it on Reader 6, left the ewh32, search, and a printme (rather than a print), seems to take just as long as normal.
I see several other sub-folders annotations, imageviewer, multimedia, picturetasks, printme, and vdkhome. Will try moving some of those to optional also.
If really speeds up I’ll share it with the Idaho Falls community at http://www.idahofallz.com
on 19 Jun 2006 at 7:40 am 32.zeth 1337 said …
Ok, putting the annotations, multimedia, and picturetasks folders into the optionals folder sped it up dramatically!
Will refer our locals to your remedy. Thanks. http://www.idahofallz.com
on 19 Jun 2006 at 7:47 am 33.Coronaboy said …
Thanks for sharing this tip!
on 19 Jun 2006 at 7:52 am 34.deter richards said …
thanks! seems faster at first look, hopefully it continues to function like this.
on 19 Jun 2006 at 8:11 am 35.Presentnaper said …
Another easy but high impact thing to do is delete the acrobat temp files … open command prompt and type “del acr*.tmp /s”
on 19 Jun 2006 at 8:13 am 36.Johnny said …
Another alternative is “Adobe Reader Speedup”. It’s a run-once executable that disables commonly-unused plug-ins so Reader loads up faster. It has backup capabilites in case you screw something up. I think you can find it on cnet.
on 19 Jun 2006 at 8:17 am 37.zabaldu.com said …
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on 19 Jun 2006 at 8:17 am 38.Eddie said …
Haven’t you guys checke PDF Speedup? I’ve been using it for a whila and its very cool… and free!
http://www.acropdf.com/products.html
on 19 Jun 2006 at 8:18 am 39.andrew said …
There’s an app that does this and more… and it’s free (as in beer). It’s called PDF Speedup:
http://www.acropdf.com/products.html
I used some time ago on a friend’s PC (I don’t run Windows) and it did wonders.
on 19 Jun 2006 at 8:58 am 40.Chris said …
Thanks a lot !! You made my day
on 19 Jun 2006 at 9:44 am 41.Alan said …
I prefer using FoxIt PDF Reader, loads PDFs very fast and doesn’t nag you for updates and such like Acrobat Reader seems to do endlessly.
on 19 Jun 2006 at 10:30 am 42.arantius said …
I use “Adobe Reader Speedup” to do the same thing, automatically. Freeware.
http://www.tnk-bootblock.co.uk/software/index.php?type=supported&id=Adobe%20Reader%20SpeedUp
on 19 Jun 2006 at 12:02 pm 43.Wed said …
foxit is a good free reader for PDF files and it is blazing fast!!!!
I use it all the time.
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php
on 19 Jun 2006 at 12:54 pm 44.Gregory said …
Concidering the ammount of Adobe alternatives, and utilities, I’d say you’re being spammed by Foxit and PDF Speedup people…
… ugh.
on 19 Jun 2006 at 2:44 pm 45.andy said …
foxit is way faster, but its not as good as adobe reader.
when you try to copy and past things in and out of foxit, it frequently messes up character encodings; sometimes quotes turn into symbols.
if you’re just going to read though, it is a lot faster.
on 19 Jun 2006 at 6:19 pm 46.Dylan said …
At first I tried creating the Optional folder inside the plug_ins folder, and found it still loaded the plug-ins.
By the way, from the menu bar,
Help -> About Adobe Plug-Ins…
will show you what plug-ins are loaded, and gives the descriptions.
I noticed Optional folder already created in the Reader folder (the parent folder to plug-ins), that already had a readme.txt file saying “Put unused plug-ins in the optional directory.”
This gave me the error mentioned above “There was an error while loading the plug-in ‘EWH32.api’. The plug-in failed to initialize.” I fixed this by moving the EScript.api file back into the plug-ins folder.
Works great now, thanks!
on 19 Jun 2006 at 11:58 pm 47.Mikael said …
What solved my problems with 7.0.7 was putting back EScript.api too. Without it Reader shouted “There was an error while loading the plug-in ‘EWH32.api’. The plug-in failed to initialize.”.
So the files necessary for me in order to make it run was:
EWH32.api
Search.api
EScript.api
on 20 Jun 2006 at 12:22 am 48.Shalutha said …
I was going to try out this trick, but realized that Acrobat Pro 7.0.7 starts up in the background as soon as I open IE7. This had never happened before. May be this was a result of the recent ActiveX patch.
on 20 Jun 2006 at 12:32 am 49.sano said …
I like to use foxit for its speed but when I print anything, everything come out mirrored! It’s really wierd.
on 20 Jun 2006 at 2:49 am 50.Madhu Menon said …
why didn’t I come across this article earlier!!! pretty useful!!!
on 20 Jun 2006 at 10:14 pm 51.Arun Kumar said …
Hi,
Thanks for the tip. I don’t have a problemn in my loading pdf’s in my local machine. Is anyway to make the pdf’s load faster on the website.
Thanks,
-Arun
on 21 Jun 2006 at 1:25 am 52.skiman said …
Tip works for Acrobat V6 just fine…would be great to know what the deleted stuff actually does so users could pick and choose what to omit and which plug-ins to keep.
on 21 Jun 2006 at 9:01 am 53.Rainadaman said …
It works..
on 21 Jun 2006 at 10:07 am 54.CMSwire said …
Tip: How to Speed-up PDF Loading in Acrobat…
We love the humble Dean Wiebe for posting this little tidbit. If you’ve ever sat back and wondered just how many hours (days?) of your life you’ve wasted, waiting for Adobe Acrobat to load, this is a tip for you…….
on 22 Jun 2006 at 5:12 am 55.karunamoorthy said …
It’s really amazing! Thanks a lot.
on 23 Jun 2006 at 7:52 am 56.Venkat said …
One thing is that Adobe itself provides a optional folder for putting unused plugins though I am sure many people wouldn’t have noticed it until reading this blog. Good one!
on 25 Jun 2006 at 12:13 am 57.Carlos Leopoldo — Cómo acelerar el inicio de Adobe Reader al abrir un PDF said …
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on 25 Jun 2006 at 6:18 pm 58.Speed up PDF loading with Adobe Reader - Tech[dot]Blog said …
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on 25 Jun 2006 at 11:02 pm 59.jb3 said …
Awesome info; thank you!!! It’s lightning-fast now.
on 25 Jun 2006 at 11:33 pm 60.Colin DiPonio - Tech Consultant » Blog Archive » Speed up Adobe Acrobat said …
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on 28 Jun 2006 at 5:36 am 61.Erica2368 said …
I did not have print.asi but the application did seem to move much faster. Great tip.
on 28 Jun 2006 at 10:47 am 62.Michal Barnes said …
Wow - From a secretary to all the computer gurus out there, thanks so much for finding out things like this. You don’t know how much it is appreciated.
on 28 Jun 2006 at 10:08 pm 63.Adam said …
You think Reader is slow? Try installing Acrobat Pro and having it overtake your PDF reading. I’m going to try this trick, though, and we’ll see what happens.
on 29 Jun 2006 at 7:10 am 64.AMD said …
Wicked as it really works
on 29 Jun 2006 at 7:02 pm 65.spankey1313 said …
This is the best thing since sliced bread!
on 01 Jul 2006 at 2:16 am 66.jasir said …
This idea is great.
for Reader v6 copy these api files:
EWH32
Search
Search5
printme (if you print documents)
This is better and faster than those speed up programs, Although they’re less complicated.
* PDF SpeedUp 1.42 :
http://www.acropdf.com/
* Adobe Reader SpeedUp 1.35 :
http://tinyurl.com/bh5yy
on 01 Jul 2006 at 11:33 am 67.symidran said …
Hey m8, nice idea. I just wanted to ask that, if i delete additional language plugins (like in French,Italian etc.) will there be any problem? I have adobe acrobat 7 pro…and its a multilanguage install…so there r abt 4 plugins of each type
on 05 Jul 2006 at 5:14 am 68.WindsorTenor said …
Many Thanks. I just started using Ebooks and am currently reading a monster (809 pages). Needless to say, this sure speeds up the loading of this book!
on 08 Jul 2006 at 4:44 am 69.Katie said …
Great tip! I tried it and it appears to work.
However, isn’t it a sad statement about our lives that waiting for 30 seconds for a file to open is such a hardship? lol!
on 08 Jul 2006 at 8:07 am 70.Don said …
I can’t find print.api on my list of plug-ins with 7.0. Can it be under another heading?
on 08 Jul 2006 at 12:24 pm 71.Teri said …
I would like to know if there is an easy tutorial on how to create a pdf file. ?? please advise. TY P.S. Thank you for this tip.
on 08 Jul 2006 at 4:18 pm 72.Mark Mitsos said …
Thanks for the tip, this work OK on a Windows machine but how about on an iMac running OS-X.
on 11 Jul 2006 at 8:28 am 73.Bernie said …
This was unbelievable! Thanks you so much. What a difference! I’d stopped opening pdf files on the web.
Thanks again
Bernie
on 11 Jul 2006 at 11:41 am 74.Turk said …
what about if your using a mac?
on 16 Jul 2006 at 11:32 am 75.mickey said …
Dude this rocks. Couple questions though, I didnt see a print API in the plug_ins folder. And what about the folders in the Plug_ins folder? I moved those into the optional folder I created also. Either way I’m astonished how fast adobe 7 opens now. It is a beautiful thing.
on 16 Jul 2006 at 11:59 pm 76.h.n.acharya said …
Will some one tell me how to reach the plugin files in Adobe program as soggested.
on 17 Jul 2006 at 6:43 pm 77.D.W. said …
Try this: Start -> Run (or Run Program) -> then type C:\Program Files\Adobe. Next, open the folders pertaining to the most recent version installed, ie “Acrobat 7.0″, then “Reader”. Hope that helps! DW
on 20 Jul 2006 at 3:13 am 78.D.W. said …
A few people have mentioned how to perform this on a Mac. See comments #17 and #24. Regards, DW
on 31 Jul 2006 at 6:57 pm 79.The Peeler Family Blog » How to speed up PDF loading with Adobe Acrobat said …
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on 06 Aug 2006 at 11:38 pm 80.How To Speed Up the Adobe Reader (PDF) Loading Time : Techtips said …
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on 07 Aug 2006 at 5:11 am 81.FAST pdfs at arthuserea said …
[…] My mouth drops. I begin to cry, only wishing someone found a way to hack Windows like this. What is it? No, not some new Linux disto. or other Open Source program. Rather, Dean Wiebe has found a way to make your the normally slow pdfs load like a plaintext file, if not faster. Believe me, his method works. So, give a hand for DW. […]
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on 17 Aug 2006 at 2:45 am 83.Phill Craig said …
concerning the script errors and hang up in acrobat. if there is no print.api then create a text document and then rename it to print.api. that fixes the error and the hangup.
ENJOY !!!!!!
on 01 Sep 2006 at 3:08 pm 84.Mike said …
I tried this on the latest version, 7.0.8.218
I left Search, Search5, EWH32, and EScript in my plug-ins folder. I didn’t find any print files. If I move the Escript file to the optional folder, I always get an error message unless I also move EWH32 there. This worked great for me on an earlier version of Adobe Reader, I hope this also works good.
on 03 Sep 2006 at 11:59 pm 85.Software » How to speed up PDF loading with Adobe Acrobat said …
[…] It took me far too many years to finally get sick of how slow Adobe Acrobat loads PDF files. It was taking between 10 and 30 seconds to load a single file. How could this be? Well, I found a solution and I highly recommend it to everyone, everywhere - itâ��s that good.read more | digg story […]
on 04 Sep 2006 at 7:44 am 86.Deanna said …
I tried this on Adobe version 6.0
I left EWH32, printme, search, and search5 in my plug-in folder. This worked great. Both Adobe itself and any pdf file I viewed loaded MUCH faster. Thanks for the great tip!!
on 05 Sep 2006 at 7:11 am 87.Les said …
My version of Adobe Reader 6 must be psychic as I found an optional folder already created with a ‘put your unused plugins in here’ readme in the folder.Spooky or what!
on 16 Sep 2006 at 12:24 am 88.RosSoft said …
Works like a charm
on 16 Sep 2006 at 5:54 am 89.EA said …
And if you really want to use Adobe and Adobe only, why not try a lite version?
[url]http://www.nliteos.com/addons/#3[/url]
on 08 Oct 2006 at 11:31 pm 90.Chris_Simpson said …
I gave up on adobe acrobat a long time ago (major activation issues which in the end, could not be resolved by support - it was a nightmare). So I found another application, Nitro PDF Professional. Its 3 times the speed of acrobat. Give it a try. They offer a free demo on the nitropdf site (http://www.nitropdf.com). Really slick…
on 25 Oct 2006 at 12:09 am 91.(434) DWTIPS » How to speed up PDF loading with Adobe Acrobat : Popular Bookmarks : eConsultant said …
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on 02 Nov 2006 at 7:51 pm 92.m2h blogging » PDFing said …
[…] Via del.icio.us and google, I did find the following information. How to speed up loading of PDF with Adobe Acrobat The Firefox PDF Extension to view PDFs as HTML, download, or open PDF. Facts and Opinions about PDF Accessibility at A List Apart PDF Accessibility at WebAIM Web Usability - PDF and Accessibility August 2004 Adobe Access - Adobe has published accessibility information for each of its products. […]
on 01 Jan 2007 at 11:13 am 93.A said …
Any update on this trick for version 8?
on 16 Jan 2007 at 8:18 pm 94.Dennis Bareis said …
The “optional” folder name (and its readme) is misleading, there doesn’t appear to be a “load on demand” directory or option. This means I’ll have to leave things as they are. I’ll get excited when no plugins need to be left in the “plug_ins” directory and/or they all get loaded as required.
on 25 Jan 2007 at 8:13 am 95.Mosquito said …
For Adobe Acrobat 8, here’s what worked for me:
Remove all except:
EScript.api
- this appears required.. removing it crashes acrobat
EWH32.api
Search5.api
Search.api
These seem useful:
AcroForm.api - if you want to fill-in PDF forms
Checkers.api
- object level access to PDFs, used by other plugins
reflow.api - reflows content to fit width
weblink.api - allows links to webpages
on 04 Feb 2007 at 2:29 pm 96.Alex said …
Well done, it opens up instantly. Thank you very much.
on 05 Feb 2007 at 2:22 pm 97.Top Blogs » Blog Archive » Speed up PDF file opening said …
[…] Speed up PDF file opening Posted on June 19th, 2006 in Top Blogs by admin DWTips solves a problem that has plagued everyone at some point. By tweaking a couple of settings you can totally speed up the process of opening Adobe Acrobat files. I think we all just go used to the long delay and eventually learned to live with it but when you have to open 5-10 PDFs per day, it certainly tests your patience when it takes 30 seconds to open. Every time you run Adobe Acrobat up to 20 plugins are loaded unnecessarily - most users do not need even a fraction of them! […]
on 07 Feb 2007 at 6:32 am 98.Speed Up PDF loading « amir’s blog™ said …
[…] This usefull tricks i picked it up in ‘DWTIPS‘ blog. Usually Adobe Acrobat Reader taking 10 - 30 to load a single PDF file. This tricks show how you can speed the PDF format file with the software. It disable the unnecessary plug-in loading when the software was launched. » Click here to find out how? […]
on 24 Apr 2007 at 1:29 pm 99.fridax said …
Thanks, seems to work!
on 26 Nov 2007 at 9:22 am 100.Azhar Bhai said …
Thanks for making my life easier.
on 19 Feb 2008 at 5:27 am 101.Bernie said …
Wow, this tip is amazing. I finally got sick of the slow loading times and found this on a Google search. Thanks a million!!!
on 30 Mar 2008 at 2:33 pm 102.Rajeev said …
This trick works for the latest adobe version 8.The speed of loading is better than foxit.Thumbsup to you buddy.
on 24 Apr 2008 at 7:18 am 103.Jane sikolkomool said …
wow!!! all those nights that I could not sleep now I can sleeep… pdfs are fast now.. my dream has come true… wow …
on 14 Jun 2008 at 10:17 pm 104.calypsorajesh said …
I like to use foxit for its speed but when I print anything, everything come out mirrored! It’s really wierd
calypsorajesh
=====================================================
There are a lot of sites out there showing book video. BookVideoTV, BookTelevision and of course CSPAN, but I like how BN.com and Reader’s Entertainment TV have specific genre channels and original shows. There’s just more to see and I can be specific in what genre I’m interested in. Anyone else watch online tv?
on 29 Jul 2008 at 5:03 am 105.Legan said …
Just INCREDIBLE HOW GREAT THIS WORKS…
I just decided to stick with adobe intstead of getting the Foxit Reader…