Load documents faster - now live!

Opening a large drawing set in Notch now takes about a second. Until a few weeks ago it meant downloading the entire file — often 200 MB or more — before the first sheet appeared on screen. We've rebuilt the way drawings load, and it applies to every document already in your library, not just new uploads. Here's what changed.

Why It Was Slow

A PDF is one long file, and the standard way to open one is to download all of it and then work out where the pages are. On a 200 MB set, that means moving 200 MB before a single sheet can appear on screen.

What We Changed

A PDF can be laid out so that a reader knows where every page sits without holding the whole file. Every drawing is now prepared that way as it's uploaded. The editor opens from the first slice of the file — usually around two percent of it — and loads the remaining pages in the background while you work.

There's nothing to switch on and no setting to find.

Every Drawing, Not Just New Ones

We ran every document already in Notch through the same process, so a set uploaded in June opens as quickly as one uploaded this afternoon. Nothing to re-upload.

Smaller Fixes That Came With It

• Zoom no longer flickers, or drifts off the point you zoomed at.
• Sheet position is remembered when you jump around a set.
• Fit page, fit width and the common zoom ratios are in the status bar.

Where It's Still Slow

Processing a large set after upload still takes time. Page images, text extraction and AI indexing all run in the background — you can work before they finish, but they aren't instant. That queue got considerably faster this month and we're still working on it.

What's Next

The same attention on uploads and exports.

Something missing, or something broken? hello@notch.build.

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— The Notch Team