The Content Preparation Progress dialog box shows "Please wait while the document is being prepared for reading" in Adobe Reader 8. This is useful if you use a screen reader or screen magnifier (mostly used by visually impaired users). If you like me don't want it, here is how to remove it and speed up Adobe Reader.
Close Adobe Reader and delete or move this file:
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Reader 8.0\Reader\plug_ins\Accessibility.api
When you open a PDF file next time make sure to select the checkbox "Do not show this message again".
Restored comments
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
Awesome tip! Thanks! The strage thing is that the content preparation progress dialog box started appearing without warning. Any idea what might have caused this component to turn on (or install itself)?
Osman
April 19, 2007
JTB World said...
Osman,
I'm not sure what triggered this thing.
April 19, 2007
Chase said...
Thanks! I had been wondering what was going on with that..
May 29, 2007
Anonymous said...
Just wanted to say thanks. I have been searching for a while but have been coming up empty until I stumbled upon someone who had reposted your instructions!
June 10, 2007
Anonymous said...
I started getting this message after I messed around with the reader configuration several months ago. I knew it was probably for enabling screen readers or some other kind of handicapped access but I could not easily find the checkbox to turn off this feature. Thank you for this tip.
October 11, 2007
Anonymous said...
Unfortunately this did not work for me. I am running Vista 64 bit with Acrobat Reader 8.0. I received the initial message and check the box that said do not show again, but then I receive a second message that says "Invalid plugin detected. Adobe Reader will quit"
November 08, 2007
Anonymous said...
I also received the "Invalid plugin detected" error message after deleting Accessibility.api on Win XP with Adobe Reader 8.1.1.
I also removed the files MakeAccessible.api and ReadOutLoud.api, it now seems to work.
November 19, 2007
Beatle said...
I had the same problem as above and I also removed the MakeAccessible.api and ReadOutLoud.api files. Now it works like it should!
December 07, 2007
Anonymous said...
I actually had a problem with Adobe Reader crashing when opening certain documents. After viewing a few seconds, an "unhandled win32 exception in AcroRd32.exe" would occur.
I suspected this had something to do with the so-called "Content Preparation", and after removing Accessibility.api AND MakeAccessible.api and ReadOutLoud.api, everything seems to be working well.
I can't believe they didn't put in an option to turn off this plugin!
Thanks for the tip!
January 08, 2008
George German said...
I love you.
This saves several long long minutes of my day. Everyday.
At least once a day I think of you now.
February 07, 2008
Anonymous said...
Very Good! It wasn't a reading preparation for me if I have a stupid window in front and can't control anything!
Thanks a lot guys
February 13, 2008
Anonymous said...
Life Saver. Thank you!!!!!
March 28, 2008
Anonymous said...
you make my day, thank you
April 12, 2008
Anonymous said...
This was a great help, thanks! I went to \Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 7.0\Acrobat\plug_ins, renamed Accessibilty.api to Accessibilty.api.disabled and was good to go.
I also found it came out of nowhere with out warning... not sure what triggered it.
May 23, 2008
Anonymous said...
Thank you so much! This has been driving me nuts. After reading the posts, I unchecked all the options in the Edit->Preferences->Accessibility window. In particular, the Tab Order option was the only one enabled. After doing that, the dialog box seems to no longer appear.
Now if only I could make it scroll properly...
June 17, 2008
Anonymous said...
Ignore the previous comment. Setting the Reading preference to visible pages only seems to work.
June 18, 2008
funseeker said...
Thank you very, very much.
I found tips to delete Accessibility.api on several other sites. But none also highlighted to delete also the two other files (MakeAccessible and ReadoutLoud).
Previously I had several crashes and loooong waiting times for preparation.
I love you guys!
June 25, 2008
Anonymous said...
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I don't understand why Adobe creates such an annoying box above the content you want to read and not even a simple option to turn this shit off.
July 08, 2008
Anonymous said...
This tip also works with Adobe Reader 9.0
July 25, 2008
** Another way of fixing it **
ReplyDelete1. Go to Edit -> Preferences -> Reading
2. Under "Screen Reader Options", select "Only read the currently
visible pages"
Rename the Accessibility.api and ReadOutLoud.api to Accessibility.old and ReadOutLoud.old (or you can move them to a different folder). These files are found in C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 8.0\Acrobat\plug_ins. This solution however, has the possibilty that a future upgrade of Acrobat would cause these plugins to renable.
ReplyDelete