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macintologist · Dec 9, 2008, 11:21 PM

I have an Intel iMac, 1.83ghz, should be fast enough to read freakin' PDF files.

Here's the one I'm dealing with

http://www.law.georgetown.edu/facult.../Swift_000.pdf

Can anyone else test this on your average Core 2 Duo 2+ghz Mac and see whether scrolling is really laggy like it is on my iMac? I thought starting with OS X 10.3 Panther Macs were supposed to have a phenomenally quick Quartz PDF rendering system.

Cold Warrior · Dec 9, 2008, 11:26 PM

In Adobe Reader it hangs/lags at page breaks but in Preview it is smooth. MBP C2D 2.16 GHz 2GB RAM.

macintologist · Dec 9, 2008, 11:28 PM

Originally Posted by Cold Warrior

In Adobe Reader it hangs/lags at page breaks but in Preview it is smooth. MBP C2D 2.16 GHz 2GB RAM.

Scrolls like Butter™ smooth?

I'm viewing it in Safari would that make a difference for you?

FireWire · Dec 9, 2008, 11:30 PM

Scrolling was a little bit slower than usual but the speed remains decent (both in Safari and Preview)

macforray · Dec 9, 2008, 11:31 PM

I've got a Mac Mini 1.42 ppc that opened and scrolled through your link like cutting butter with a hot knife. I was using Preview, which has been more than adequate for opening, viewing, saving and printing .pdf files. I haven't needed to install Reader yet.

FireWire · Dec 9, 2008, 11:33 PM

I think it is due to the fact that the entire document is composed by "images" (scan) instead of text. If this was a direct export, things would be a lot faster.

hyteckit · Dec 9, 2008, 11:34 PM

Use preview. Adobe acrobat is slow.

And tell the professor to convert it to text using OCR. It's just a PDF of images right now.

Laminar · Dec 9, 2008, 11:59 PM

It's jumpy on a C2D 2.66GHz/4GB RAM PC running XP in Firefox and Adobe Reader.

Tiresias · Dec 10, 2008, 12:05 AM

I agree. Especially after cropping a PDF. On my MacBook Pro, using Preview, a cropped PDF takes about 3 or more seconds to be displayed. What gives?

macintologist · Dec 10, 2008, 12:06 AM

I'm definitely not using Adobe Reader, just Preview and the standard PDF Safari plugin. Perhaps some of this is subjective? When I mean smooth I mean when you drag the scroll bar it literally stays with your mouse cursor and doesn't lag or delay in the slightest, like right here in this forum page in Safari. I guess I'm just shocked that PDFs would be slow when the entire Mac 2d graphics acceleration engine is BASED OFF OF PDF!

http://developer.apple.com/graphicsi.../overview.html

Quartz's feature-rich drawing engine leverages the Portable Document Format (PDF) drawing model and offers Mac OS X applications professional-strength drawing features and performance.

Tiresias · Dec 10, 2008, 12:07 AM

Originally Posted by macintologist

I have an Intel iMac, 1.83ghz, should be fast enough to read freakin' PDF files.

Here's the one I'm dealing with

http://www.law.georgetown.edu/facult.../Swift_000.pdf

Can anyone else test this on your average Core 2 Duo 2+ghz Mac and see whether scrolling is really laggy like it is on my iMac? I thought starting with OS X 10.3 Panther Macs were supposed to have a phenomenally quick Quartz PDF rendering system.

On my MPB (2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo) your PDF link took about 4 to 5 seconds to load using Safari.

macintologist · Dec 10, 2008, 12:08 AM

Originally Posted by Homo Loquens

On my MPB (2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo) your PDF link took about 4 to 5 seconds to load using Safari.

Does it delay or lag when you try to start scrolling down?

Tiresias · Dec 10, 2008, 12:15 AM

Let's see...

A tiny bit, like less than half a second for each scroll-down, but definitely not enough to cause a delay or annoy or interfere with reading it. And once I've scrolled to the bottom and back up, there's no delay.

Cold Warrior · Dec 10, 2008, 12:19 AM

Originally Posted by macintologist

Scrolls like Butter™ smooth?

I'm viewing it in Safari would that make a difference for you?

Not butter smooth; certainly not when loaded in Safari.

Tiresias · Dec 10, 2008, 12:19 AM

My real problem is trying to understand a single word of that document. Yikes.

macintologist · Dec 10, 2008, 01:17 AM

Originally Posted by Homo Loquens

My real problem is trying to understand a single word of that document. Yikes.

This is the title to my 25+ page paper due tomorrow night:
The Writ Runs to Gitmo
The developing jurisdiction of the US Supreme Court to issue writs of habeas corpus to enemy alien combatants detained at Guantanamo Bay after September 11th

Laminar · Dec 10, 2008, 01:51 AM

Originally Posted by macintologist

This is the title to my 25+ page paper due tomorrow night:
The Writ Runs to Gitmo
The developing jurisdiction of the US Supreme Court to issue writs of habeas corpus to enemy alien combatants detained at Guantanamo Bay after September 11th

Well all I have to do for tomorrow is prepare to debate that the Harvard Divinity School dean shouldn't have lost his job after being caught with porn on his computer. I don't envy you.

Chuckit · Dec 10, 2008, 03:49 AM

Originally Posted by Homo Loquens

Let's see...

A tiny bit, like less than half a second for each scroll-down, but definitely not enough to cause a delay or annoy or interfere with reading it. And once I've scrolled to the bottom and back up, there's no delay.

Sounds about like scrolling in Firefox.

osiris · Dec 10, 2008, 10:02 AM

I use Preview for pdfs (never liked Acrobat).
I wouldn't say it scrolls super smooth, but it scrolls without any hiccups.
But certainly not as fast as I would expect on a 2 x Quad core.

mattyb · Dec 10, 2008, 10:53 AM

Originally Posted by Laminar

Well all I have to do for tomorrow is prepare to debate that the Harvard Divinity School dean shouldn't have lost his job after being caught with porn on his computer. I don't envy you.

Need some evidence to help you with your debate.

Laminar · Dec 10, 2008, 10:58 AM

Originally Posted by mattyb

Need some evidence to help you with your debate.

There's actually quite a bit about this online since it has been used as an ethics case study. His hard drive had filled up so he requested that IT install a new, bigger one, which is when they discovered the porn.

mattyb · Dec 10, 2008, 11:30 AM

Sorry Laminar, I was joking - poorly. I thought that it was something recent at first.

As for the PDF, takes a good half second between pages scrolls on my POS Dell laptop running XP with 2G of RAM using Adobe Reader 8.

Laminar · Dec 10, 2008, 11:33 AM

I've found that PDFs in Preview are much much faster than Adobe Reader.

FireWire · Dec 10, 2008, 01:15 PM

Originally Posted by Laminar

I've found that PDFs in Preview are much much faster than Adobe Reader.

I hate that every time I update Acrobat Reader, it tries to "repair" its installation by trying to sneak up its crummy plugins. The wording they use make it sound as if we should really click on Repair.. Damn it, Adobe, you lost it, just go with it...

Thorzdad · Dec 10, 2008, 01:56 PM

Here's an oddity. Acrobat displays the PDF just fine. In Preview, Safari, and the Firefox PDF plugin, I get nothing but blank pages.

mduell · Dec 10, 2008, 04:37 PM

My MBAir running OS X chokes on non-trivial PDF (particularly with graphics); much slower than a Windows box with half the CPU.