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Adobe Acrobat Reader got you down?

Wed, Mar 14, 2007

Quicktips, howto

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EDIT: 7/12/07: This apparently breaks Acrobat Reader 8.1 – even removing the accessibility plugin causes Acrobat Reader to complain about an ‘invalid plugin’, then exit out. I put the plugin back in, and 8.1 does not seem to exhibit the same symptoms that 8.0 did (i.e.: no “please wait while the document is being prepared” crap). I’m going to play around a bit, but it seems Adobe fixed this in Reader 8.1

- Cavtroop

I installed Acrobat Reader 8.0, and every single time I open a document, I was presented with a “please wait while the document is being prepared” message, that would sometimes stay for minutes as it indexed the entire document. This presented issues with both usability, and when giving presentations.

To remove this ‘feature’, simply navigate to your %Program Files%\Adobe\Reader 8.0\reader\plug_ins folder, and rename (delete, copy elsewhere) the ‘accessability.api’ file. The same file exists, but in slightly different locations, in older version of Acrobat Reader.

Poof! No more annoying messages preventing you from actually reading the file. Keep in mind, the ‘reader’ functionality will no longer work, but who uses that anyways? Next time you open a file, Acrobat will complain that this version doesn’t have ‘reader’ functionality built in. Check the box, and click OK, and that’s the last you will hear from them on that!

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This post was written by:

cavtroop - who has written 56 posts on ArsGeek.

Cavtroop is a Senior Editor for Arsgeek.com He works for a fairly large software company that you've all heard of, managing networks, systems, and seemingly lots of cranky people. His role at Arsgeek is to be an advocate for change, a catalyst for socioeconomic...nah, too lofty. He's more interesting in chipping in with (not so) relevant news and insights into things that interest him - role playing games, computers, technology, etc.

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32 Comments For This Post

  1. Bill Weaver Says:

    Thank you! This works perfectly and makes life just a little more bearable.

  2. Jack Alexander Says:

    Why not use foxit reader, small, free, and fast. Print to pdf? Use dopdf5, same as the former. Adobe has the bloat, why waste the space?

  3. Henry Says:

    I couldn’t get Acrobat to load after trying this tip. Here is an alternative method:

    1. Select Document – Accessibility Setup Assistant….
    2. Select “Set all accesibility options”, click Next three times,
    3. Select “Only read the currently visible pages”, click Next, and then Done.

  4. cavtroop Says:

    Henry -

    Thanks for the tip – see my edit above, this seems to break Reader 8.1, but I don’t have the same problem with 8.1 that I did with 8.0

    THanks!

  5. Alan Says:

    For creating PDF docs PDF 995 is much faster, free with ad or cheap with no ads. Either way, no footnote ad, so cool. Just use Adobe for more advanced features. Ah, just realised this thread is for Reader, not Full, but useful info anyhow.

  6. Larry Says:

    This works for Acrobat 8.0 Pro as well. When renaming the file, you must remove the .api file extension; just changing the filename and leaving the .api does not disable the ‘feature’

  7. Frank Says:

    You might also try this:

    Go to:
    HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\7.0\Accessibility
    and change iReadingMode form 2 to 1. Worked for me with version 8.1.1.

  8. vsync Says:

    Where did the bookmarks panel go in v8? Not a useful tool.

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    Thnx for the awesome tip :)

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    Thank you for sharing this post though:)

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  22. Gel Bikini Says:

    I remember that bug. It was really irritating. I downgraded until version 8.1 was released.

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    Have to say that since the introduction of the latest microsoft word it has been less of a headache. At least you can create PDFs there.

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    I never had such problems with Adobe Acrobat Reader. What computer you have and what operating system are you using. There might be an incompatibility issue between software versions.

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11 Trackbacks For This Post

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  4. Watching The Net Says:

    Eliminate Adobe Reader 8 "please wait while the document is being prepared" Message

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