[Macworld]

Post your comments for Improve sluggish PDF handling in Preview here

[derkathon]

Rob Griffiths, you are my hero.

[akuma1x]

I have several PDF files that are actually scans of books, page after page after page after page. It makes for a very large PDF file. When I open them, many of the pages are blank, and I eventually get an error dialog box saying that there's something wrong with the file. Might the methods above fix these files? I guess I'll give it a try and report back...
Jeff

[akuma1x]

Nope, didn't work. It's got 146 pages, measures in at 106MB for the original, and only 304KB after saving with a Quartz Filter. All but 4 pages are completely blank, both in the original, and the copy. Oh well...

Jeff

[griffman]

That's quite strange -- seems the original scans are problematic (as even the original file didn't open properly). Do you know how it was scanned?
-rob.

[jpmhughes]

This can also be done, for those that have Acrobat professional, by using the "PDF optimizer".
Out of curiosity, I download the pdf and extracted some of the images in Photoshop. They must have been corrupted when compressed. Some of the pages extracted fine at a resolution of 133.476.
Other pages extracted were 400 dpi but were severely distorted.
I guess by re-sampling the pdf it must remove the compression which led to the corruption (and slowness) of the document.
I almost always optimize pdf's, even if I create them.
Good tips Rob.
Jim

[djstein2]

I tried this, but Colorsync Utility won't hold a name for a new filter(it reverts to Untitled), and it won't access the image sampling box.

[griffman]

Make sure you press Return after entering the new name ... and are you logged in as an admin, or as a normal user?

-rob.

[djstein2]

It was quirky, but I was able to get it. Had to quit and reopen Colorsync Utility to access the submenus, and I was able to name it, but only after playing with it a number of times. Thanks.

[kranbollin]

I ran into this problem so often that now I just open most pdfs with Acrobat. The problematic pdfs were usually technical documents downloaded from professional journal sites. They handled much better and with no processing needed.

[jpmhughes]

Did you download or open the referenced PDF?
Because it was sluggish in both preview and Acrobat professional.

[kranbollin]

The pdfs were downloaded and then opened. I disabled the Safari feature enabling viewing within the browser.

[sporks]

Nice job expanding and clarifying my original tip comment on osxhints; it's much more useful now.
Kudos.

[Typhoon14]

kranbollin said:

The pdfs were downloaded and then opened. I disabled the Safari feature enabling viewing within the browser.

And are you telling me scrolling isn't incredibly sluggish in both programmes? That would countermand the experience of pretty much everyone else who has tried using this PDF.