Disable Content Preparation Progress Dialog in Adobe Acrobat

Content Preparation Progress Dialog

If you have been annoyed by this following dialog when you open PDF files in Adobe Acrobat v8, here are the two different ways is the way you can disable it.

  • 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.
  • Remove “Speech Recognition” from the Language Tool bar, settings, Installed Services. The other way to get this, if you don’t have the Language Toolbar visible, is via the Regional and Language Options Control Panel, under the Languages Tab, and click on the Details button and then you can remove any references to “Speech Recognition” that you find under the Installed Services.

Published by

Jeremy Snyder

TODO: add interesting Bio info here :-)

65 thoughts on “Disable Content Preparation Progress Dialog in Adobe Acrobat”

  1. The second way seems not working. Do I need to restart my computer after removing speech/handwriting recognition? Thanks.

  2. Thanks for the helpful post. I’ve been wanting to disable this feature since it takes too much time on large documents.

    I tried your second method and used Control Panel > Regional and Language Options. Oddly enough my installed services only include a US English Keyboard. “Speech Recognition” is not in my list of installed services.

  3. Well, based on further testing it appears that the first option works, but the second may only be a temporary fix for some. I will keep looking for a better way to solve the problem, but at least removing the Accessibility.api and ReadOutLoud.api does solve the problem.

  4. This has been suggested by another poster:

    1. Go to Edit -> Preferences -> Reading
    2. Under “Screen Reader Options”, select “Only read the currently
    visible pages”

    Aandi Inston

  5. Number 4 above works great (Edit / Preferences / Reading / Screen Reader Options / Only read the currently visible pages) Thanks so mucy, Aandi Inston

  6. Good fix, the first one. It just works! Thanks!

    I ploughed through the menus and found nothing sensible enough. Till I did a google search and landed up on this page – your solution rox!!

  7. Blinkin Brilliant!!!

    This used to lock my machine up for ages, was getting to the point of chucking it out the window.

  8. 1. Edit -> Preferences -> Reading
    2. find”Screen Reader Options”, choose “Only read the currently visible pages”

  9. Thanks for the info. I often create large PDF maps from my GIS. These become almost unusable due to the large number of placenames or streetnames that normally fit on a 3′ x 4′ map. Now I can read them using Reader 9.0, but my clients cannot (without doing what you suggest). This ‘feature’ in Reader is a real problem for me as PDF is the standard for this kind of work. Hmmm, as a mitigation, I will try to figure out how to create a PDF from CutePDF or Nitro that turns fonts into shapes…

  10. Great. solve my headache, I just wonder how the adobe guy to develop such a monstor to kill the user?

  11. Number 4, ROCKS!! I finally got this removed. I can’t even begin to tabulate the amount of time wasted awaiting the feature to complete its “preparation”. Thanks!

  12. 1. Edit -> Preferences -> Reading
    2. find”Screen Reader Options”, choose “Only read the currently visible pages”

  13. 1. In the Adobe Reader press CTRL+K (Alternatively open EDIT > Preferences)

    adobe-acrobat-content-preparation-screen-options 2. Go to Categories, select Reading

    3. Choose Screen Reader Options and select Only read the currently visible pages.
    4. OK
    5. Next time you will not see the pop up.

  14. Thanks author and number 4.

    What idiot at Adobe thought this was a good software update exactly??

  15. That fix gets rid of the prompt, but not the actual problem. It still causes a major resource drain when reading each page as you scroll through the document.

  16. “Post 4” did not really help me, but the first of the origin two options was great. Thanks! Newly happy PDF reading man! 🙂

  17. “Post 4” will correct the problem only for the current document which is open. Even after deleting every single plug-in for the Reader, I still got the prompt (I have Reader 8.0 and Windows 7).

    The more permanent extension of “Post 4” ‘s strategy is to instead go to the Accessibility Setup Assistant (under Documents), which sets more global preferences. On the fourth page, you can click “read only current page.” This seems to get rid of the dialogue prompt for all documents, not just the current one.

    However, as “Post 31” states, I don’t think this fixes the underlying behavior, since the reader will still prepare every page as you go.

  18. If you are not actually using the windows narrator for anything, then you can deactivate the problem at the source: [start]+[u] click on “Narrator is running” and hit Stop. You can also uncheck “Sart automatically when Utility Manager starts”, to avoid reoccurence.

  19. Thanks ! Blimmin thing was driving me crazy until I googled the problem and found your post – awesome !!

  20. thank you lord baby jesus! that popup has been annoying/crashing acrobat on me for months now.

  21. Thanks of the post. Used it before on 8, now on 9. I liked the renaming better, because I believe acrobat was still processing rotations etc while I moved through the document. Renaming the two .api’s will remove the ‘reading’ option under preferences. Close the folder first, or acrobat seems not able to access the preferences at all.

  22. I am not sure, but I think I have found a way to essentially eliminate the issue.
    If you deselect all the checkboxes in Reading Preferences (mentioned by #4 above) except voice and speech attributes and select “Only read the currently visible pages” then the time it takes to do the reading for each individual page seems to be negligible.

  23. Thank you! Note that for Windows 7 and the new version of Adobe the files are located in different places, but the names are the same (and also, you have to remove an additional file, called MakeAccessable).

    This is a huge saver! It not only saved time, but lots of stress as I had another huge reason to kill Adobe each time that thing came up, and would make the file crash if i canceled out of it. What a stupid idea!!!!!!!!

  24. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!

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