Why can't I zoom in with the mouse wheel while in pan mode?

Quick workaround for the mouse-wheel part: hold Ctrl  and scroll. In Acrobat that zooms toward the pointer no matter which tool is active, so you get back the in-and-out feel the update took off plain scroll while in Pan/Hand mode. Also worth a look at Edit > Preferences > Page Display in case the update reset a scroll-behavior setting there.

Disclosure: I make Ncored, one of the options here. If Acrobat keeps feeling clumsy on big architectural, engineering, and electrical sheets, it can help to keep a faster viewer open next to it. Ncored is a buy-once desktop app for Windows (and Apple Silicon Mac) built for that case: opening 50-200 MB+ drawing sets and staying smooth on scroll, zoom, and pan, with comment pins for markup. It is a fast view-and-markup tool today, not a Bluebeam or Acrobat replacement (no measurement, takeoff, OCR, forms, or e-sign yet), so most people run it alongside Acrobat rather than instead of it.

If you want to check whether pan and zoom actually feel better on your own drawings, there is a heavy-CAD test you can re-run on your set here: https://ncored.com/pdf-benchmark-cad-drawings.html . Files stay local, no account, and there's 14 days free if you want to throw a real project set at it.

Hi Amal.

I have basically followed your steps in your reply to the original poster, three or four times now with no change.
Operating system is MS Windows 11, version 25H2 installed on July 7.
I have a second machine that has no problem zooming in Acrobat - I will include the OS details later.

//Andrew

 

Hi there, 

Hope you are doing well and thanks for reaching out. We are sorry for the trouble you are experiencing. 

Have you started experiencing this issue recently after the update or was it occurring earlier as well? What is the version of the Adobe Acrobat application and the OS you are using? Go to Help > About Acrobat and make sure its updated to the latest version  26.001.21662 Planned update, Jun 09, 2026 Go to Help > Check for updates and reboot the computer once. 

Also go to Preferences (Ctrl,Cmd+K) > General > under basic tools, Select ‘Make Hand tool use mouse-wheel zooming’ Click OK and reboot the application.

If it still doesn’t work, please share a small video recording of the steps you are taking and the issue as it occurrs along with the Application and OS version details so we can get this checked further by our development team.

~Amal