Can I use two versions of Acrobat in different situations automatically?

January 17, 2005 9:53 AM

Acrobat woes. I have Acrobat 6 Pro, and it takes forever to load. How can I get Acrobat Reader 7 to open PDF in my browser, and save 6 for when I want to edit files? [more inside]

Acrobat 7 reader opens damn quickly compared to the pig-in-mud that is Acrobat 6 Pro. However, I can't edit files in the reader, and I don't want to turn off all the extensions in 6 to boost the load time because I end up using quite a few of them when creating/editing PDF files. I know that a few years back I had my system running Reader 5 in the browser and Acrobat 4 Full when opening pdf files locally. Somehow I can't get the current versions to do this.

Any suggestions or help on this? WinXP Pro/Firefox... I've already tried the obvious (playing with settings in both acrobats) but 7 refuses to open in the browser, no matter which browser plugin I use, and 6 doesn't appear to play nice with 7.

posted by caution live frogs to computers & internet (7 comments total)

I prefer to download PDFs to my desktop and open 'em there. Opening anything through my browser takes way too long.
posted by fandango_matt at 10:29 AM on January 17, 2005

PDF Speedup made a big difference for me. It is just below the shareware product on the page.
posted by srboisvert at 10:49 AM on January 17, 2005

I just tried srboisvert's linked and it worked for me. Acrobat 6 Pro would freeze all my Firefox windows for over a minute when i tried to open PDFs. Doesn't seem to happen anymore. Thanks.
posted by driveler at 11:18 AM on January 17, 2005

I've always liked Acrobat Reader Speedup, which seems to have less scary licensing terms and works for Acrobat Pro too.
posted by quiet at 2:54 PM on January 17, 2005

The speedup thing is pretty easy to do manually as well, just move all the .api files you don't need from [acrobat directory]\plug_ins to \optional
I've just got EWH32.api, printme.api and Search.api and it works fine.

This might not work so well if you're using it to create PDFs as well though, since presumably it removes some features.
Have you tried just reinstalling 7? I would have thought it would do all the browser stuff at install.

Also, firefox lets you control what external applications do in Options -> Downloads\ -> File Types
posted by OldMansHands at 3:25 PM on January 17, 2005

Thanks for the AR speedup tip! Reader is a million times faster now. (Also the firefox tip, I'll have to remember that...)
posted by prettyboyfloyd at 5:44 PM on January 17, 2005

well, 7 is a lot faster than 6, reader or pro. but that isn't the problem - i want 6 to open PDF files from the hard drive and 7 to open them online. all i've managed to do so far is screw up my system... 7 is the default for opening now, from web or HD, but refuses to work as a browser plug-in like it should. i mean, what the hell? i love adobe's products but sometimes they really, really piss me off with the weird little quirks they have.

(like the inconsistent differences in click/right click/mouse wheel actions between Photoshop and illustrator CS for example, or the complete inability to reassign lost file type associations without doing it manually or reinstalling the damn program...)

so, question not answered so far. speed up removes plug-ins, which i don't want to do. acrobat 6 reader and pro will not live side-by-side. 7 can become the default program and leave 6 as a right-click option for opening local files. but i still can't get PDF files to open in my browser without crippling the plug-ins for 6 pro or losing 6 as the default for local file-types, which as i said above makes 7 not work as a browser plug-in.
posted by caution live frogs at 8:32 AM on January 18, 2005