My semester readings are all scanned textbook PDFs, some 300+ pages, and my current viewer lags badly when scrolling. I’ve heard people mention PDFgear and Sumatra - which one handles big scanned files smoother on Windows?
Laggy scrolling on big scans is annoying, especially with a whole semester’s readings. Honestly, if these are just scans, Sumatra usually feels smoother than PDFgear on Windows because it is lightweight and does less in the background. PDFgear is nicer for notes and search, but it is more of a full editor and can feel heavier on huge files. To be fair, I would try Sumatra first for reading.
For pure reading, Sumatra wins easily. It’s tiny and scrolls through huge scanned files without breaking a sweat, since it does almost nothing else. PDFgear is heavier but has built-in OCR, handy if you need to search or copy text from those scans. I keep Sumatra for reading and only open PDFgear when I need OCR.
For just reading big scanned PDFs on Windows, I’d try Sumatra first as it’s lighter and usually scrolls more smoothly on my older work laptop. Keep thumbnails and extra panels closed, and avoid opening several 300-page files at once, as the image-heavy pages can still make either viewer lag.