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I Love Preview.app

Every time I'm able to show someone a feature of Preview that lets them avoid the abomination that is Acrobat Pro, I feel good for two reasons:

They get more use out of a tool they already have and are familiar with, resulting in higher productivity at lower cost, always a good thing

Payback

Seriously, Preview fucking rocks, and unlike Acrobat with shit like Portfolios, the PDF files I create in Preview aren't proprietary to that application.

Ever since it first came out, Preview has consistently rocked. It doesn't have a UI that looks like it was designed by ex-Notes engineers. Seriously, look at the difference. Here's Preview in Mac OS X 10.6:
Preview displaying a PDF with lots of bookmarks

Same PDF in Adobe Reader 9:

Not having an overly complicated UI is one thing, but for fuck's sake, your icons are not all that. Even if I turn on "all" labels for toolbars, which is itself a fucking adventure compared to Preview. In Reader:
Turn on Text Labels

and in Preview:

Menu option

Customize settings

However, while turning on text for the icons in the toolbar in Preview creates the respected results:
Preview's toolbar with text enabled

In Adobe Reader, it's a bit...not what you expected:
Adobe Reader with text enabled border=

Where's my labels? Well, there's a secret. To see all the labels, you either have to undock the toolbars from the window:

or you have to ensure you don't have "too many" toolbars docked:
Not too many now

or you can use multiple rows of toolbars:
Stacking's good. Everyone loves Jenga!

But if you have "too many" items, evidently, Adobe decided that labels can never go underneath an icon:
See, now look what you did.

So yeah. Go Acrobat UI Team!

Secondly, Preview, as a lightweight PDF reader, kicks Adobe ass, for file size if nothing else. Adobe Reader is over 220 MB in size. As a comparison, OpenOffice 3.1.0 is not even 2X that size, yet does a lot more. Preview? 34.9 MB. Now, of course, the Acrobat people will start arguing about how Reader does so much more than Preview, and that's true. But that doesn't make it better. That just makes it bigger, and if you're going to be that big, then why not just call it Acrobat Essentials, and stop pretending it's a reader.

I don't think that Adobe understands that there is a market for a lightweight application that does a minimum beyond viewing, and does so with a clean UI.

It's not like all Preview does is let you view. You can do annotations, notes, add links, simple shapes, bookmarks, etc. You can combine PDFs or add pages from another file, (something you can't do in Adobe Reader) delete pages, (can't in Reader), etc. You can even add files in other formats that Preview supports, such as PNG, JPEG, etc., again, something Reader doesn't support. (At least not in a generic not-tied-to-an-Adobe-server-farm configuration. You know. The way normal people would use it.)

Preview doesn't support the collaboration or Adobe server tricks that Reader does, but again, if you're that big of an Adobe customer, why aren't you just licensing Pro or Standard? (On Windows at least. Mac users only get Acrobat Pro.) Preview doesn't support PDF portfolios, but so what? For one thing, PDF Portfolios are rather counter to the idea that PDF should be a universal format. Right now, even the 'big' alternative to Acrobat, FoxIt, is still working on integrating Portfolio support, so if you use Portfolios, you're requiring everyone who wants to read your work to ONLY use Adobe Reader 9.

So much for PDF as a pseudo open standard. So much for Adobe not trying to make PDF an Adobe-only standard. Pull the other one guys.

Finally, and this is important, because Preview isn't running embedded javascripts et al, it's immune to the plethora of security issues that have hammered Acrobat and Reader over the last year or so. (Adobe at this point is just saying "Turn off Javascript". Great. So much for people actually trying to use a program feature. Call me when you get that security shit stabilized.)

At this point, if there's something I need to do with a PDF that Preview won't handle, I just use Acrobat Pro. Reader's about as necessary as a 73-wheeled bicycle, and less fun to ride. I don't expect Pro to be lightweight, or just a viewer, so my expectations are properly set for using the application. Reader? That shit's just lying to me.

Besides, considering the way the Acrobat team has shat upon their Mac customers since before Acrobat 5, exactly why the fuck do I want to use their product anyway?

So tl;dr: Fuck you Adobe Reader, call me when you aren't a fucking mess. In the meantime, Preview FTW.

Categories: Adobe

Posted by John C. Welch at 13:09 | Permalink

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Every time I'm able to show someone a feature of Preview that lets them avoid the abomination that is Acrobat Pro, I feel good for two reasons:

They get more use out of a tool they already have and are familiar with, resulting in higher productivity at lower cost, always a good thing
Payback

\nSeriously, Preview fucking rocks, and unlike Acrobat with shit like Portfolios, the PDF files I create in Preview aren't proprietary to that application. \n\nEver since it first came out, Preview has consistently rocked. It doesn't have a UI that looks like it was designed by ex-Notes engineers. Seriously, look at the difference. Here's Preview in Mac OS X 10.6:\n $\"Preview$ \n\nSame PDF in Adobe Reader 9:\n $\"\"$ \n\nNot having an overly complicated UI is one thing, but for fuck's sake, your icons are not all that. Even if I turn on \"all\" labels for toolbars, which is itself a fucking adventure compared to Preview. In Reader:\n $\"Turn$ \n\nand in Preview:\n\n $\"Menu$ \n\n $\"Customize$ \n\nHowever, while turning on text for the icons in the toolbar in Preview creates the respected results:\n $\"Preview's$ \n\nIn Adobe Reader, it's a bit...not what you expected:\n $\"Adobe$ \n\nWhere's my labels? Well, there's a secret. To see all the labels, you either have to undock the toolbars from the window:\n $\"\"$ \n\nor you have to ensure you don't have \"too many\" toolbars docked:\n $\"Not$ \n\nor you can use multiple rows of toolbars:\n $\"Stacking's$ \n\nBut if you have \"too many\" items, evidently, Adobe decided that labels can never go underneath an icon:\n $\"See,$ \n\nSo yeah. Go Acrobat UI Team!\n\nSecondly, Preview, as a lightweight PDF reader, kicks Adobe ass, for file size if nothing else. Adobe Reader is over 220 MB in size. As a comparison, OpenOffice 3.1.0 is not even 2X that size, yet does a lot more. Preview? 34.9 MB. Now, of course, the Acrobat people will start arguing about how Reader does so much more than Preview, and that's true. But that doesn't make it better. That just makes it bigger, and if you're going to be that big, then why not just call it Acrobat Essentials, and stop pretending it's a reader. \n\nI don't think that Adobe understands that there is a market for a lightweight application that does a minimum beyond viewing, and does so with a clean UI.\n\nIt's not like all Preview does is let you view. You can do annotations, notes, add links, simple shapes, bookmarks, etc. You can combine PDFs or add pages from another file, (something you can't do in Adobe Reader) delete pages, (can't in Reader), etc. You can even add files in other formats that Preview supports, such as PNG, JPEG, etc., again, something Reader doesn't support. (At least not in a generic not-tied-to-an-Adobe-server-farm configuration. You know. The way normal people would use it.)\n\nPreview doesn't support the collaboration or Adobe server tricks that Reader does, but again, if you're that big of an Adobe customer, why aren't you just licensing Pro or Standard? (On Windows at least. Mac users only get Acrobat Pro.) Preview doesn't support PDF portfolios, but so what? For one thing, PDF Portfolios are rather counter to the idea that PDF should be a universal format. Right now, even the 'big' alternative to Acrobat, FoxIt, is still working on integrating Portfolio support, so if you use Portfolios, you're requiring everyone who wants to read your work to ONLY use Adobe Reader 9.\n\nSo much for PDF as a pseudo open standard. So much for Adobe not trying to make PDF an Adobe-only standard. Pull the other one guys. \n\nFinally, and this is important, because Preview isn't running embedded javascripts et al, it's immune to the plethora of security issues that have hammered Acrobat and Reader over the last year or so. (Adobe at this point is just saying \"Turn off Javascript\". Great. So much for people actually trying to use a program feature. Call me when you get that security shit stabilized.)\n\nAt this point, if there's something I need to do with a PDF that Preview won't handle, I just use Acrobat Pro. Reader's about as necessary as a 73-wheeled bicycle, and less fun to ride. I don't expect Pro to be lightweight, or just a viewer, so my expectations are properly set for using the application. Reader? That shit's just lying to me.\n\nBesides, considering the way the Acrobat team has shat upon their Mac customers since before Acrobat 5, exactly why the fuck do I want to use their product anyway?\n\nSo tl;dr: Fuck you Adobe Reader, call me when you aren't a fucking mess. In the meantime, Preview FTW.