Speed of viewing Word/PDF files

I have found that I have to have the WORD, Adobe Reader programs open in order for DOpus to view the files quickly. Otherwise, it takes forever for a view to come up.

But should this be necessary? Is there some other adjustment I can make to speed up file viewing?

Hmm, I just found that re-installing Foxit reader, so that it is the defaault Adobe reader, also fixed the problem with word files.

I spoke too soon. It appears that Foxit has to be open before DOpus will view Adobe or Word files quickly.

Another viewing problem occurs when I delete a file. If I delete a Word file that I am viewing, the viewer will NOT automatically open the view of another file, any other file, until I either open a file in Foxit or Word or close and re-start Opus. Does anyone know how to resolve this?

If Word and Adobe Reader are what's being used to view their respective formats then (of course) they are what the ActiveX plugin has to load to view those formats. If they are already loaded and running then the plugin doesn't have to load them as they are already there.

If you want to speed things up you can use something else to view the formats.

For Word your choices are probably limited to using the Opus MultiView plugin instead (which will hook into a 3rd party viewer, which you have to acquire separately, which can show Word documents without loading Word itself), or upgrading to Microsoft Office 2007 (which will allow the ActiveX plugin to use the new Preview Handlers which come with Office 2007 and enable programs to view Office documents very quickly, without loading the full Office apps to do so).

For PDF there are several alternative PDF readers such as FoxIt and PDF-XChange and I think one or two others. So long as they are installed after (or instead of) Adobe Reader you should find the ActiveX plugin uses them instead of Adobe Reader.

FWIW I find recent versions of Adobe Reader aren't too slow at loading. If you're using quite an old version then updating it may be enough.

[quote]It appears that Foxit has to be open before DOpus will view Adobe or Word files quickly.

Another viewing problem occurs when I delete a file. If I delete a Word file that I am viewing, the viewer will NOT automatically open the view of another file, any other file, until I either open a file in Foxit or Word or close and re-start Opus. Does anyone know how to resolve this?[/quote]
That doesn't make any sense. What does FoxIt have to do with Word files? As far as I know FoxIt only handles PDF.

What happens when you click on another file after deleting one?

Thanks for your reply Leo. However, it doesn't really help me. I am finding the whole file viewing thing very frustrating in DOpus. It takes from 2 to 30 seconds to open a Word file, and you can't do anything else while you are waiting for it to open. This is unsatisfactory -- PowerDesk and otehr programs open viewers instantly! Do you think I am doing something wrong, or is this just the way DOpus is?
Brian

If you have Powerdesk then you can use the Multiview plugin in Opus with the viewers that come with PD.

How do I do that?

[MultiView viewer (various document formats))
[resource.dopus.com/t/tip-free-viewer-plugins/267/1)

You need to configure the MultiView plugin to tell it where the DLLs are before it will do anything. Go to Preferences - Plugins to do that.

Thanks Leo,

So check the Multiview setting and no others. That works fine and fast on most files -- but does not view .txt, .ttf, or .do files (that is, all text files) at all. This is very limiting.

If I also check the Text viewer box, that allows viewing of those files. However, every time you view a txt file, it takes 20-30 seconds to switch back to the multiviewer to view othe files. This is very frustrating.

Am I still missing something, or do I have to live with one of these limitations. Powerdesk does not have these limitations, though it is slow to open PDF files.

Thanks, Brian

I've never used the MultiView plugin so I don't know for sure. I'd expect it to be the same as with PowerDesk though.

My understanding is that the QuickView system which MultiView uses is lightweight and should load quickly but I have never actually used it myself so I may be wrong.

If you only see a slow-down when switching between MultiView and other viewers, not when viewing subsequent documents using MultiView, then I would suspect something is seriously slowing down loading DLLs on your system. It could be a virus checker (but most should not slow things down that much), very low memory, or high disk fragmentation, for example.

If you want to talk about this further, please start a thread in Help & Support or discuss it in the MultiView threads as we're no longer talking about the ActiveX plugin here, which is what this thread should be about.

I thought of something else: Make sure the MultiView plugin is above the ActiveX plugin in the plugin list in Preferences. (Or disable the ActiveX plugin, or configure it not to handle the extensions you want MultiView to handle instead.)

If you don't then you will still be using the ActiveX plugin to view Word (etc.) files.

I have Multiview above ActiveX in the list - but I only have one or the other (not both) checked for the notes in the next 2 paragraphs.

Using ActiveX viewer alone, all files take from 3 to 30 seconds to open to view - even subsequent files of the same type! - that is an unacceptable wait. This happens when ActiveX is the only viewer checked -- which means that txt files cannot be viewed. However, if I happen to place my cursor over a text file, the subsequent viewing of other files is slowed even more just as if I had viewed the text file when the Text viewer is checked (see below).

If I also check the Text viewer, I can view text files. However, the combo of MultiView and Text would be superior to the combo of ActiveX and Text because MultiView opens files much faster than does ActiveX. But both combos have the problem of the delay opening any other file after viewing a text file (or having the cursor over a text file name).

I don't understand why text files cannot be viewed by MultiView because it can be configured to "View unknown files as" Text. Even it you set this to "Dont' read" it still takes 3-30 seconds to open the next file after the cursor has been on a text file!

Next, I tried having all three of these viewers checked - MultiView, ActiveX and Text. Behavior seems to be about the same as above, perhaps even slower.

Any other ideas?

No ideas that I haven't already suggested.

Do others have these issues with slow times to view, etc.???

Have you investigated whether it's your virus scanner (if any), or low memory, or disk fragmentation causing things to be so slow?

As a comparison, if I view a .DOC file via ActiveX/Word it takes about 6 seconds to load the first document (if Word hasn't been used in a while), then about 3 seconds for each subsequent document (since Windows is caching the Word binaries in memory). If I do the same with the Office 2007 Preview Handler enabled then it takes even less time, about 1 second (or less) per document.

This prompts me to ask a question I was going to pose. Has anybody looked at what Adobe Reader 9 does for DOpus? In particular, has it added any problems?

Like leo, I have found that Adobe seems to be addressing the speed issue with Reader – either that or my faster PC handles it better.

First reports of Reader suggest that it is the fastest loader yet.

If it can live alongside Acrobat 7, it may be the way ahead for me. It takes less fiddling about to make it collaborate with DOpus and other software.

No. At least, not after viewing the first file, and depending on the size of the file. (A 16MB PDF file can take a couple of seconds.).

And I have the QuickView viewers (I paid for QuickView Plus.)

You might find it useful to search this forum for QuickView. Leo helped me to get it to work just fine.

Leo has already mentioned the things to look out for, especially the order in which the viewers kick in. Here is the order that works for me:

You might also want to experiment with changing the order of "Multiview" and "ActiveX..." and then checking to see which viewers are checked. Putting "ActiveX..." first will give you more control because unlike "Multiview" you can tell it to ignore files.

Oops. This seems to have moved while I was writing. (It may be down to using the RSS feed to grab messages before replying.) Unfortunately, I can't delete it.

It's in the right place I think. Or maybe I've misunderstood? Only just woke up so brain not in gear yet. :slight_smile:

Yes, I have checked virus cjeckrer, disk fragmentaiton, etc., and no problems there/ My computer has no speed issues with any other program.

Well. my comparison is with PowerDesk - which takes far less than one second to load any Microsoft file (doc, xls or ppt) or text document, a bit longer to load some pdf files (up to 3 seconds). You can see why I think waiting as long as I often have to with DOpus is unacceptable to me.