how can i hide navigation panel buttons

On Mac the solution for acrobat X is go to preferences, then select the documents tab and enable the option "restore last view settings when reopening documents". Now you can close whatever tools or panels you want and reopen acrobat with your custom view preferences.

There are a jillion registry keys all over the place that I tried changing to

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Reader 11.0\Reader\AcroRd32.exe"  /A "navpanes=0" "%1"

but the one that finally worked for me in Adobe Reader XI to permanently remove the

ANNOYING/USELESS/REDUNDANT "Navigation Pane" was:

HKCR\AcroExch.Document\Shell\Open\Command

Dicking around with all other instances of ftype, assoc, and other registry keys wouldn't work until I found this one.

If changing just this key doesn't work, then it's possible you need to change other assoc/ftype/keys as well

Adobe could so easily have just made options to remove all the annoying and superfluous changes rather than

forcing new widget layouts on users that require a wild goose chase to disable every time a new version comes out.

Now in XI, there is this huge extra "Open" button with an icon on the leftmost side of the Toolbar that I don't need

but which is taking up a lot of space on the toolbar.

JEEZ, Adobe, JUST QUIT IT WITH THESE USELESS ANNOYING, GRATUITOUS UI CHANGES!!!!

Maybe some employees are trying to justify their salaries by endlessly moving around widgets?  LOL!

Adobe reader configuration options are horrible, and 90% of them are totally useless. Showing the Navigation Pane on left, that standard non-hideable; and not-thin scroll on the right, Tools/Comments/SignIn etc. crap on the top right, toolbar on the top having more than half of buttons totally useless (Sign, Sticky-note, Highlight - I am sure almost 100% "non-average" users have not used them).

Yes, as commented by someone, MS Word ribbons are also clutter - but, but.. they do provide the user option (super-quick option) to hide them when asked - no complex drama to show that "Hey, we developed this nifty feature - you MUST use it". But, Adobe, you do it.

I have read many small articles and books on Adobe Reader itself on Software Engineering. And Customizability is one of the primary quality-attribute of a good software. Hence, marketing the non-sense stuff, with absurd reasoning doesn't amount to a good software.

If you can't provide good reader, just because it is free - abandon - yes abandon it! Some other company, or group of umpteen developers would create a lot better PDF reader. PDF (format) is not rocket science - it can be learnt and software developed on it. You, adobe, have been giving ~100MB updates in a month or so - all classified as "security update"? A reader is suffered from vulnerabilities?? Sounds fishy. For 8+ years, I didn't find anything, ANYTHING, new in Adobe reader.

ALLOW Customizability.

Anyone trying to find the answer for XI like I was

Enter reg key

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\11.0\Workflows]

"bEnableShareFile"=dword:00000000

Since the problem is [still current] as of Adobe Acrobat XI version 11.0.10 and in athe 'Pro' edition

The regkey to change to prevent Navpanes from showing up (on the Left of the Document window) when opening a PDF document is:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Acrobat.Document.11\shell\Open\command

Name: (Default)

Type: REG_SZ

Data: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Acrobat 11.0\Acrobat\Acrobat.exe" /A "navpanes=0" "%1"

YOU, as an end user, can do it manually by right-clicking on the panel and choosing to hide them. Leonard

"I want you to redesign your application to suit ME ONLY, and ignore the millions of satisfied users! ME ME ME!" Yeah, great business strategy. How much is your company worth compared to Adobe? So who has the better business sense, I wonder?

Wow, that's some great customer service there.  The user must be wrong because their personal tastes and preferences are different than yours.

For anyone else looking for ways to remove this aggravation, I got the "fix" to work through trial and error.  There's no record of which reg key to edit so I had to hunt it down myself.  For Adobe Reader XI, I changed the following key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AcroExch.Document.11\shell\Read\command

To read:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Reader 11.0\Reader\AcroRd32.exe" /A "navpanes=0" "%1"

No more navigation pane buttons!  Now it looks how it should.  Your reg path may be different than mine, but hopefully it should work the same.  Of course, none of this would be an issue in the first place if Adobe decided to add a preferences checkbox to begin with.  But that would require NOT forcing their useless screen-cluttering features on the end user.  They haven't learned how to do that yet.

Thanks Adobe!

> The navigation panel is also an information panel for letting you know when a PDF contains certain features (security, layers, etc.).

===

Your own lame opinion is not of interest to us, customers.  We say your sidebard must be perma- disableable (NOT per-session, bu tpermanently) as it was in older Acrobat prior to ver 9 (or 8?).  Do you understand English language?  We do NOT want your idiotic sidebar - to me it's NOT about "valuable space", but about being distracted by more & more info we didn't ask for !  I am an Engineer, I know what's best for me betetr than you imagine you know.  I could give TWO FLYING KRAAPS about your "valuable" sidebar, all it does is make me want to go back to older Acrobat.

Your people sit on their a$$es and devise new ways to generate revenues by "revamping" a workign application, moving menus & stuff around and adding kraap features to justify your salaries, that's it - it is about constantly inventing weays to SELL more Acrobat.

I want sidebar disableable or I will hack it, and as I said I am an Engineer, I will hack to kill sidebar, thanks for makign my life harder, you Leonard frigging Rosenberg.

Second Grievance: Acrobat X canvas color is no longer compliant w/user's Windows System wide colorscheme (when Windows is in Classic mode - which happens to be the ONLY productive mode for working pro's, rather than kids with their "pictures & music" usage of computers.

It's fixated in "Silverish" color by your idiot coder.  Since when it stopped disrespecting user's Windows setting and enforce its own color?  Even if you don't want to read customers Windows colorshceme as was usual prior to AcrobatX, at least gives us ability to change that Canvas color.

Referring to Background color when you zoom out of PDF object, you see that object upon "backdrop/background" which graphicxpros call "Canvas".

Can you understand that breakign down this function is retarded?

What kind of progress is that in Acrobat X?  You want us to stick with your eye-sore silversih background ?!?>!  ANd not able to change? ?  AND REFUSE TO COMPLY WITH WINDOWS SYSTEMWIDE COLOR - IN MY CASE DESKTOP & ALL WINDOWS USE BLACK BACKGROUND, YES I WANT BLACK, DO YOU GET THE IDEA/??  I wish I coulduse stronger language $#$@U&&^$

P.S. Typos b/c posting from Mobile device ==> tiny keyboard & typing fast (busy!) - sorry !

I've been trying to follow the advice from Patrick Leckey on 9. May 8, 2008 2:45 PM in response to: (susana_albor) , however, I can't find the particular .exe definition mentioned, nor can I find the particular registry paths mentioned. I too would like to disable the navigation pane on the left hand side permanently.

I have Adobe Acrobat X Pro.

Two things:

1. I HATE, HATE, HATE with all the venom I can summon into my heart the INCESSANT, REAL-ESTATE-CHISELING, DISTRACTING navigation pane and its infuriating insistence on reappearing and reappearing and reappearing until you're ready to pound the desk with your fist. I don't like distractions. I don't dangle a light bulb off the corner of my TV or play paddycake with a half-inch-wide "pane" when I read a book. I simply focus on the pages, and nothing else. As I would like to do in Acrobat.

2. The removal methods suggested by Adobe employees and others in the first half of this thread never worked for me. They only succeeded in causing my documents to appear buggily. Maximizing, say, a small Acrobat window would work--but the document you were viewing would retain its small dimensions, even if it too was maximized. Who am I, Clint Eastwood driving a bus in "Gauntlet" and looking through a slit as I roll through the streets? That's who I felt I was until I hit F4 twice to reset the window to display the document to its borders.

I tried reinstalling Acrobat, but the window settings prevailed, surely through the registry somehow. Which brings up a third question: Why, when I have revoked consent for your product to even be on my hard drive (presumably the installation agreement doesn't say "you agree to have our stuff installed after you uninstall it"), does my registry remain bloated with litter from it?

And for a fourth thing, the removal of multi-document interface in 9 was the other worst thing that Adobe did. I can *NOT* stand having 580 windows open when I'm managing a workload.

GET.

A.

CLUE.

In the meantime, I'll be using the pre-vexware version of Acrobat that I recently downgraded to.

What I am needing is quite similar.

Hide the Navigation panel while displaying a PDF in VB6.

I can do this manually, I can in an activate event set focus to the pdf and force key press of Ctrl+H.

this assumes that the Navigation is already on.

I need a way to hide the panel as the pdf I am showing is an attempt to make a thumbnail of the PDF.

If the user double clicks, they can see the full screen with navigation and all.

I am showing several PDF's at a glance.

If there were another way without having to use the AcroPDF.dll then I am open to suggestions.

Thanks,

Preach The word !!!