Back in 2023, Microsoft began moving the Microsoft Edge PDF reader to Adobe-based PDF technology. Edge was once and is still regarded as one of the best PDF readers, and Adobe integration was supposed to make it even better. There are still some rough edges, such as the PDF reader being slow on low-end PCs, but that could change soon.
PDF readers, especially web-based PDF readers, can be slow and laggy. In fact, when using a virtual machine with a mere 4GB of RAM, Windows Latest observed that Microsoft Edge’s PDF reader is slow. We observed this particularly when we opened large PDFs with up to 1,000 pages. In that case, Edge was struggling and often showed a white page.
On the other hand, Google Chrome handled it perfectly. It makes me wonder if Microsoft is trying to fix it in a future release of Edge. Over the weekend, Windows Latest also spotted a reference to a feature flag called “msPdfOpenOnLowCoreDeviceWithDcPdfEnabled”, which seems to point towards some sort of performance upgrade.
In the flag name (WithDcPdfEnabled), “DcPdf” could refer to Document Cloud PDF integration (i.e., Adobe Acrobat DC). The idea seems to improve the performance of the PDF reader, so it uses less memory on low-end PCs and allows you to easily browse large PDFs if you have an old PC or limited RAM.
In addition, Windows Latest spotted another feature related to Edge PDF reader called “msPdfSharedLibraryTrigger”, which seems to point to a feature that would dynamically load or unload shared libraries for PDFs.
This refers to either performance improvements or some new PDF features powered by Adobe Cloud.
Either way, Microsoft Edge’s PDF reader could soon get even better. It’s all part of the tech giant’s efforts to make the browser one of the best PDF readers.
Edge could use more AI and ML
A whole new PDF experience that works well on low-end PCs isn’t the only new feature coming to Microsoft Edge.
Windows Latest has previously spotted several references to AI and ML-powered features in Edge.
We saw references to msEdgeAutofillShowMlSupressLevo and msEdgeAutofillShowMlAndLevo. Microsoft could show suggestions for card cards or addresses using AI/ML instead of just reusing the previously entered data.
Another notable change coming to Edge could be deeper integration with Windows 11’s taskbar, such as exiting the browser when it is running in the background. Or some possible download-related status within the taskbar.
We don’t know exactly what is coming, but time will tell.
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