Adobe Reader - How hard can it be?

Does anyone else share my frustration that for the past god knows how many years, Adobe Reader is still far from bug-free.

Of course, the latest bug would have to be the fact if you scroll a PDF document in a web browser using the scroll wheel or the scroll button for the mouse scrolling... the scroll bar at the side just stays where it is.

How irritating going through a document when you don't know how far you are through it.

It's absolutely pathetic that they release software which is not really fit for purpose.

I noticed this too. Very annoying, but in fairness to Adobe, it's a free product. Easy to moan, but not from a position of having lost money.

As soon as you move the mouse pointer over any part of the scroll bar (or away from it if it was already on it) it will jump to the right position. A little inconvenient, but hardly a major problem. I wouldn't say this minor quirk makes the software "not really fit for purpose".

Reader is only free so that they can sell Acrobat.

I know. Generally the users of Acrobat are commercial in nature.

In reply to a post by camieabz:

I noticed this too. Very annoying, but in fairness to Adobe, it's a free product. Easy to moan, but not from a position of having lost money.

I have to disagree there, the product is free but their format is forced on us and also they gain money from the people who create documents using their paid for version. Such a huge company with such a huge customer base should not be making silly gaffs like this.

There are a significant majority of personal home users who have no intention of ever purchasing Acrobat...

The "not fit for purpose" also factors in the fact it still will freeze and not recover if the server you are downloading a document from stops sending you the information. This is obvious fault tolerance that should be built into the program.

I guess they did get their act together starting with v9, before that there was always the cringe moment when you click a link and realise its taken you to a PDF and there is a 50% chance it will crash and you will lose all your open tabs.

You expect micky mouse faults like scroll bar not working from programs developed by individuals, not huge companies like Adobe.

Before anyone makes any reference to MS, they are nowhere near as bad!!!

Edited by Pipexer (Wed 25-May-11 23:25:01)

Foxit have a free pdf reader which you can download here its only 8 Mb ish. Careful with options that you select during install, otherwise quite ok

I did use foxit in the past but because it didn't (at the time) integrate into browsers and stream PDFs I decided to go back to Adobe once v9 came out.

Certainly a very good product and I may give it another go. Overall, their product is much less buggy and far faster and reliable compared to the mighty Adobe effort, just lacks the features mentiond above (or at least it did when I tried).

If a small company like Foxit can do it (whilst maintaining the PDF security features as well as offering a fully fledged version with features to match Acrobat.. then Adobe have no excuse for their sloppy program)

Rant over off to bed

It's specifically a bug which relates to viewing .pdf files within the browser. Some report browser specific, while I have tested it on FF4, IE9, Opera, Chrome and Safari, and get the same results. Perhaps it's a PC-specific issue (in that some PCs get it, and some don't).

One option with FF is to open pdfs with reader, rather than within the browser. Other browsers might have similar options, but can't be sure. It's certainly a stopgap if it bothers you more than what app opens the pdf file.

Some reading:

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/759963

http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=7...


I have a feeling the Adobe X web plugin is not ready for the latest browsers. Be interesting to see if IE8 or FF3 gets the same results.


I tried:

http://forums.adobe.com/message/3618117 (post 3)

and it locked up my browser. Had to disable the plugins in the task manager. Deffo a plugin issue.

I have both installed on my main machine and just Reader X on other machines. Foxit says the plugin will not be installed but it is and it also overrides the Adobe plugin so probably why I haven't seen the scroll issue in FF4. I did notice the odd crash on other machines with just Adobe X when the on screen toolbar was used so quickly switched to the top menu bar instead and all was ok.

Edit: Tried a PDF on other machine and Adobe X scroll problem is apparent.

Edited by Banger (Thu 26-May-11 02:42:01)