Preview and Acrobat

Question

I have very much liked using Preview as the standard viewer for PDF as well as various image formats, but evidently Acrobat 7 introduced elements that my version of Preview cannot handle any more - I get 'the file may be corrupt or a version that Preview does not recognise' on many of the Acrobat files that Windows-based colleagues are sending me these days, and I have to open the amazingly ponderous Acrobat Viewer v.7 to see them (at least, it is amazingly ponderous on my 7-yr-old computer).
My 10.3.9 incorporates Preview 2.1.0 - is there a way of collecting and installing a later version than this?
Thanks very much!
B&W G3, 450mhz, 1gig RAM   Mac OS X (10.3.9)  

Answer 1

Hello erewash,
First of all, welcome to the Apple discussions.
I don't think so, but when you use Acrobat 7 you can do the following.
You can optimize Adobe Reader 7 by removing unnecessary plug-ins. Here's how I did it. Note that this tip requires write access to /Applications):
Navigate to /Applications/Adobe Reader 7; control-click on the applicaiton and select Show Package Contents, then open the Contents folder in the new window that opens.
Create a folder named "Plug-ins (disabled)"
Open the regular "Plug-ins" folder, and then drag all plug-ins into the "Plug-ins (disabled)" folder except for the following:
WebLink.acroplugin
ImageViewer.acroplugin
EScript.acroplugin
Search.acroplugin
Escript is necessary for WebLink to work, but won't do anything with JavaScript disabled (assuming you've disabled it per the instructions in my other hint ).
If you don't care about following web hyperlinks in documents you read, you can move all plug-ins except Search into the disabled folder. Since I have also disabled automatic Reader updates, I don't need the updater plug-in, but you may want to keep it in otherwise. To re-enable a plug-in, drag it (and any other plug-in it depends on) back to the "Plug-ins" folder.
With plug-ins disabled, my Reader is faster and uses a smaller memory footprint -- 18.5MB versus 26MB of real memory, and 187MB versus 230MB of virtual memory.
You can also disable plugins through the Finder's Get Info window. Just click on the Reader application, hit Command-I, and then expand the Plug-Ins section. Disable those you don't wish to use. The above method has the advantage of being somewhat easier to work with, as the Plug-Ins section is tiny and requires a lot of scrolling about.]
* An also you can download the Schubert plug-in for Safari.
<a href=http://www.schubert-it.com/pluginpdf/Download here</a>
Open with Safari PDF in-stat with Preview.
Let me know if so ...
Dimaxum <]:~))