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Adobe Acrobat is full of bugs!

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I’m embarrassed for Adobe. I’m retired now, but I’d used Acrobat since its inception, I believe 1993. It always worked for me. Now it’s crap. I can’t OCR. I can’t print to PDF. It fails every time. I send in reports. It looks for solutions, but it has none. I’ve had to use free 3rd party tools, but even with those, I can’t get what I need. I have a 10-page TIFF file that I need to OCR and bring into my desktop publishing tool. Not InDesign. I used to use that. Now it’s Affinity Publisher. Whatever. This is all unbelievable.

Amal JaiswalCorrect answer

Community Manager

Hi @PeterBB ,

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

A couple of quick questions that'll help pin down the OCR and TIFF issues:

In Acrobat, click the View menu at the top of the screen. Do you see an option called "Disable New Acrobat"? (Some Mac installs have it, some don't, and that changes what fix applies.)
When you hit the printing snag, is that from a PDF you already have open in Acrobat, or are you trying to print something else (like a TIFF or a file from another app) into a PDF?

Here's what's likely going on with each issue, and what usually fixes it:

OCR (the green box that does nothing): Sometimes the Scan & OCR panel pops up but never loads or shows progress. The fix that's worked for most people: go to View > Disable New Acrobat, restart Acrobat, and try OCR again in the classic layout. If you don't have that menu option, try Help > Check for Updates first and make sure the application is updated to the latest version 26.001.21789 Out of cycle update, Aug 11, 2026 the recent updates addressed this.
On the naming: "Scan & OCR" is called that because the same tool handles both scanning a paper document and running OCR on a file you already have; it's not doing anything different for your case, just bundled under one name.

TIFF files greyed out: This usually happens because Acrobat's regular File > Open dialog filters by file type, and TIFF doesn't always show as selectable there in the newer UI. Instead, try File > Create > PDF from File (or Tools > Create PDF), then browse to your TIFF. That path is built specifically to bring in image formats like TIFF and convert them straight to PDF. Here's Adobe's current guide on converting files to PDF if you want the full steps.

"Save as PDF" missing from Print: If you're printing a file that's already a PDF from inside Acrobat, Acrobat intentionally leaves out "Save as PDF" from the print dialog, since you'd just use File > Save instead, that's expected, not a bug. But if you're trying to print something else (the TIFF, or a document from another app) and want a PDF out of it, the system Print dialog's PDF button (bottom-left) should normally offer "Save As Adobe PDF.

Let us know how it goes.

~Amal

P

PeterBBAuthor

Participating Frequently

Yeah. I had that disable feature turned on, at the suggestion of AI. I just turned it on. Now, I’m trying to OCR these 10 pages of TIFF again. Here’s what I see. There’s no green rectangle at the top. I just says “Convert.” And, it appears, nothing’s happening.

I have the latest Acrobat update.

This file is a 10-page PDF file from 10 TIFFs. I see now why the “Save as PDF” is missing.

Thanks,

Peter

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Amal Jaiswal

Community Manager

Hi @PeterBB ,

Thanks for the update, glad the TIFF-to-PDF conversion worked. Sorry, the OCR side is still giving you trouble.

As you're describing, Acrobat jumping straight to "Convert" instead of opening the Scan & OCR panel, and then doing nothing, please try the steps below and see if that works.

Restart the Mac itself.
Check Mac permissions for Acrobat. Open System Settings > Privacy & Security, then check these three sections:
- Full Disk Access: Acrobat should be listed and switched on. If it's not in the list, click the + and add it.
- Accessibility: same check.
- Files & Folders: same check.
OCR relies on Acrobat being able to read and write files freely in the background, so if macOS is quietly blocking that, the tool may appear to do nothing.

If you've already restarted since turning classic view back on, try the permissions check next, and let us know how it goes.

~Amal

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PeterBBAuthor

Participating Frequently

Acrobat and Distiller both have full-disk access. I restart my Mac every morning at 4:30 am through Terminal.

I’ll try things again back in “Classic View.”

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Amal Jaiswal

Community Manager

Hi @PeterBB ,

Hope you're doing well, and sorry to hear about the trouble.

A few details would help pin down what's going wrong:

What OS and Acrobat version are you on (Help > About Acrobat will show the version)?
When OCR fails, do you get a specific error message, or does it just not produce any recognized text?
Same question for "print to PDF", does it throw an error, freeze, or produce a blank/corrupted file?

In the meantime, here's a path for the TIFF specifically:

Open the TIFF in Acrobat (File > Open, and select the TIFF; Acrobat will convert it to PDF automatically).
Go to the "Scan & OCR" tool and select "Recognize Text" > "In This File."
Once recognized, you can export it as a searchable PDF, or use File > Export To > Word/RTF if you need editable text to bring into Affinity Publisher.

Make sure the TIFF pages are clear, straight, and reasonably high resolution (skewed or low-res scans are the most common cause of OCR failures).
Try converting each TIFF page individually rather than all 10 at once, to see if it's a specific page causing the failure.

For "print to PDF" failing every time, that's often fixed by repairing or reinstalling the Adobe PDF printer driver. I'd be happy to walk through those steps once I know your OS.

~Amal

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PeterBBAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thanks, Amal.

I’m on a Mac, OS 26.6.1. Acrobat version: 2026.001.21529

When I try OCR as per the icon the right panel, a green, narrow rectangle appears at the upper left. Nothing happens. There’s no progress bar. Nothing happens. Why does it say “Scan and OCR” and not just “OCR?”

TIFF files are grayed out when I choose to open them with Acrobat. My client gave me TIFF files, grayscale at 300 dpi. This all occurs with one TIFF file or any more TIFF files.

Regarding printing, the attached shows what I see when I choose “Print.” Save as PDF isn’t even there.

I went to Gemini AI yesterday to try to resolve these issues. It basically informed me that Acrobat is, yes, full of bugs. Then it gave me a roster of third-party solutions to try and get around all this.

Cheers.

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Amal Jaiswal

Correct answer

Community Manager

Hi @PeterBB ,

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

A couple of quick questions that'll help pin down the OCR and TIFF issues:

In Acrobat, click the View menu at the top of the screen. Do you see an option called "Disable New Acrobat"? (Some Mac installs have it, some don't, and that changes what fix applies.)
When you hit the printing snag, is that from a PDF you already have open in Acrobat, or are you trying to print something else (like a TIFF or a file from another app) into a PDF?

Here's what's likely going on with each issue, and what usually fixes it:

OCR (the green box that does nothing): Sometimes the Scan & OCR panel pops up but never loads or shows progress. The fix that's worked for most people: go to View > Disable New Acrobat, restart Acrobat, and try OCR again in the classic layout. If you don't have that menu option, try Help > Check for Updates first and make sure the application is updated to the latest version 26.001.21789 Out of cycle update, Aug 11, 2026 the recent updates addressed this.
On the naming: "Scan & OCR" is called that because the same tool handles both scanning a paper document and running OCR on a file you already have; it's not doing anything different for your case, just bundled under one name.

TIFF files greyed out: This usually happens because Acrobat's regular File > Open dialog filters by file type, and TIFF doesn't always show as selectable there in the newer UI. Instead, try File > Create > PDF from File (or Tools > Create PDF), then browse to your TIFF. That path is built specifically to bring in image formats like TIFF and convert them straight to PDF. Here's Adobe's current guide on converting files to PDF if you want the full steps.

"Save as PDF" missing from Print: If you're printing a file that's already a PDF from inside Acrobat, Acrobat intentionally leaves out "Save as PDF" from the print dialog, since you'd just use File > Save instead, that's expected, not a bug. But if you're trying to print something else (the TIFF, or a document from another app) and want a PDF out of it, the system Print dialog's PDF button (bottom-left) should normally offer "Save As Adobe PDF.

Let us know how it goes.

~Amal

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