As I mentioned last week, Mac users have it pretty good when it comes to creating, viewing, and manipulating PDF files. Actually, we have it very good. Besides using Adobe’s commercial Acrobat program (a must-have if you’re serious about creating PDF files for your business), we Mac OS X users can create PDF files from anything we can print. Two weeks ago I described Mac OS X’s Preview application, which, among its many other talents, can display and manipulate PDF files with ease and blazing speed.

Before Preview came along, Mac users were stuck with what Adobe then called “Acrobat Reader”. Although Acrobat Reader displayed PDF files perfectly and had a lot of useful features, it was S-L-O-W. Really slow. Especially on larger, multi-page documents. This year, however, in conjunction with the release of the full Acrobat 7 (part of Creative Suite 2), Adobe released Adobe Reader 7. Reader 7 is a very nice update, with some new features, and, more importantly, better speed - both in opening documents, and moving around in them once they’re opened.

So, this week we’ll pit Apple’s Preview against Adobe’s Reader in a PDF shootout. However, instead of making you wait, like so many reviews like this have the tendency to do, I’m gonna tell you the results right up front. Ready?

They’re both winners. That’s right. And, you should have them both installed on your Mac (although Preview is already there). With a little system TLC (see the accompanying column), you won’t have to worry about them getting in each other’s way. And, because you’re using a Mac, it’s easy to use whichever one suits your purpose at the moment.

Here’s the shootout categories: speed (opening and manipulating), features (those used by the average non-geek), and browser integration. Our test file is the 8 MB Quicken for Mac 2006 User Guide (a common use for a PDF file). The Quicken User Guide has 445 pages with text and images, and was obviously professionally produced to include a Table of Contents. The test computer is a 1.5 GHz PowerBook running Mac OS 10.4 “Tiger”.

Speed. Although Reader 7 is much zippier than earlier versions, Mac OS X’s Preview still leaves it in the dust. Reader took about five times longer to initially open our test file than Preview did. However, the two applications were about the same speed (quite fast) in subsequent openings of the file. Where Preview really “blows the doors” off Reader is in scrolling through a multi-page document. Grab and move the scroll button in Preview and each page, images included, scrolls in real time, fluidly, top-to-bottom. The same action in Reader brings up a small box telling you what page you’re scrolling to, but doesn’t display the contents of the page until you stop scrolling.

The input window to Preview’s Search function is built into a selectable Drawer that can display either thumbnails of pages or a Table of Contents (called Bookmarks in Reader). Start typing in the Search field, and results start to be displayed almost immediately (a la Apple’s Spotlight search feature).

Searching a PDF in Reader requires opening a separate window, inputting what you’re searching for, pushing a “Search” button, then watching a progress bar while the results begin to appear. Plus, if you have your Mac set to view PDF files with Reader, you can’t take advantage of Preview’s integration with Tiger’s Spotlight search capabilities, which are guaranteed to save you time.

Speaking of time, it’s up for this week. Tune in next time for more play-by-play on features and viewing PDF files in your browser.

© 2005 Peter F. Zimowski