After getting tired of all the updates that Abode Acrobat Reader nags you about weekly it seems, we dumped acrobat reader from our software build last year. In it's place is the free and extremely fast Foxit Reader. And when I say fast I mean fast. Acrobat takes an eternity to open a PDF compared to Foxit ... seriously, the time your staff will save over the course of a year by not waiting on Acrobat is significant. But don't take my word on it, do your own comparisons.
So, I love Outlook 2007's ability to preview many files right inside of Outlook ... what a time saver!! But PDF attachments still required launching Foxit outside of Outlook ... which is still light years better than if we were using Acrobat, but still it's annoying.
This week Kyle did some digging and found out that there's a Foxit PDF previewer available for Outlook 2007! w00t!! Only catch is that currently it's only Vista compatible. Since most of our staff are on Vista that's a moot point for us. What's also nice is that it's already an MSI so we'll be slapping it into SCE to push out to all our vista boxes soon.
I immediately downloaded and installed the previewer (which was just a few clicks of the next box) and was soon enjoying the sweetness of viewing PDF's right inside of Outlook. This so rocks and is such a win ... and yet another time saver. Of course I'm kicking myself for not going out and hunting for this months ago.
So if you're still using Acrobat Reader and are tired of the slowness and barrage of endless updates you need to checkout Foxit Reader. And to take your Outlook experience up a notch install the Foxit PDF Previewer. 2 thumbs up for Foxit from me :-)
hey thanks for the note jason! i hope you find it useful. after installed on vista it also serves as a previewer in windows explorer as well.
Posted by: timheuer | February 21, 2008 at 09:14 AM
i switched! uninstalled adobe reader/acrobat from my machine.
Posted by: newsaddikt | February 21, 2008 at 03:46 PM
an alternative is to remove unnecessary plugins from Acrobat. speed improves heaps and you don't have re-educate your users.
Posted by: Dean Tuckerman | February 21, 2008 at 03:49 PM
I switched to the Reader a while back and I love it. I try to get clients to use it as much as possible too. Adobe Updates are my worst nightmare. Glad you are enjoying Foxit too.
Posted by: michael | February 21, 2008 at 05:04 PM
Thanks for the tip, will take a look for our downloads section.
Tim
Posted by: Tim Smith | February 22, 2008 at 11:01 AM
you have any issues w/ printing? im using the free version. i printed multiple copies of a multiple page document. and it printed twice as many pages as i needed.
Posted by: newsaddikt | February 26, 2008 at 04:50 PM