Participant

Answered

Choosing between the current and previous Acrobat interfaces

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
June 22, 2023
351 replies
220626 views

Why? Why do you "creators" feel a need to completely change the layout of toolbars, etc. in a program?! Do you have nothing to do so you just search out what you can do to aggravate us? Adobe Acrobat DC is now TOTALLY different in the toolbar layouts! WHY???

Correct answer BaniVerma

Hi all,

How do I switch between the current and previous Acrobat interfaces?
Acrobat lets you choose between the current and previous (classic) interface, so you can use whichever fits your workflow (where the option is supported in your version).

Switch to the previous (classic) interface:

Windows: Menu (hamburger, upper-left) > Disable new Acrobat
macOS: View > Disable new Acrobat

When prompted, select Restart to relaunch Acrobat in the previous interface. To return, select View > Enable new Acrobat and restart again.
Reference: https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/desktop/get-started/preferences-and-settings/switch-new-acrobat.html

Don't see "Disable new Acrobat"?
The option depends on your Acrobat version. First, update to the latest release: Menu > Help > Check for updates, then restart Acrobat and look again.

Why does Acrobat offer two interfaces?
The current experience groups tools into workflow-based categories (editing, commenting, signing, organizing, and sharing) to make common tasks easier to find across desktop, web, and mobile.
Adobe continues to refine the experience and provides the option to switch between the current and previous interfaces where supported.

Reference: https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/learn-new-acrobat.html

Thanks,

^BS

Show previous replies

M

Mike B. Sr.

Participant

Something just updated my Adobe to a completely differentt menu. I hate it. With other interface problems, it may be on the way out.

jane-e

Community Expert

Something just updated my Adobe to a completely differentt menu. I hate it. With other interface problems, it may be on the way out.
By @Mike B. Sr.

Did you read the thead for the solution? If you mean Acrobat (Adobe is a company), do this:

To disable the new experience,
- Windows: Click the hamburger menu (lines) at the upper left corner and choose Disable new Acrobat.
- macOS: Go to View menu > Disable new Acrobat.

Everybody hates it. You are not alone!

Jane

S

StewartMD

Participant

no hamburger to click. now what? version noted above

Frans v.d. Geest

Community Expert

The 'old' interface could use some 'freshen up', but leave things in place. A bit more 'modern look' is fine, but on the UI as we all know...

D

dswallow

Participant

These updates are absolutely apalling. Nothing improves. Everything gets slower and slower, and once you figure out where some options has moved, they move it again. I'd fire most everyone responsioble for constantly revising the UI and hire some folks who are capable of understanding how to optimize and improve performance.

C

ccdrknrgy

Participant

[abuse removed] This is the worst new version I have seen since the latest version of Excel, where now you can't anything anywhere to do anything helpful. Every version for every basic software has turned into complete garbage. I can't for the life of me figure out why people need to keep changing a good app to the point where it is unrecognizable and unusuable. Congratulations on a complete waste of money, time, and space. Someone needs to be fired big time for (removed).

kglad

Community Expert

@ccdrknrgy

you could restore the interface.

N

noggin nocker

Participant

i agrre. the new lay out is horrendous. leave things alone

kglad

Community Expert

@noggin nocker

restore to the traditional.

Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com

Legend

Remember to vote and comment in UserVoice because Adobe's engineers don't hang out in this user forum. Tell them why you don't like it, too.

VOTE HERE: https://acrobat.uservoice.com/forums/590923-acrobat-for-windows-and-mac/suggestions/47082691-ditch-t...

|    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |

Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com

Legend

Tell the Acrobat engineers and marketing department to ditch this new "Modern" Acrobat interface. It doesn't work.

VOTE HERE: https://acrobat.uservoice.com/forums/590923-acrobat-for-windows-and-mac/suggestions/47082691-ditch-the-2023-user-interface-in-acrobat

|    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |

A

AngelaAmica

Participant

I am feeling inches away from not abiding by the guidelines, as I am livid having WASTED, nearly an hour trying to figure out where the tools I have used regularly in Adobe Acrobat Pro on my Macbook Pro, customized set up -- where have they gone and why I cannot seem to re-set as before? Why would Adobe Acrobat team do such a maddening thing???!!! I still have to spend time to figure out how to get the tools I used accessible to me!! I try to get the tools I want but it will not allow me to, as it indicates that the tools I need to do MY JOB are somewhere in the program ---grayed out!! Not based on what Acrobat thinks I may want. UGH!!!!

G

Gwen31584783596p

Participant

I'm so thankful you asked the correct question or I finally searched the right topic. I've been going nuts trying to figure out why I could not print a pdf Portfolio and where did my toolbars go, why the menu bar items start showing up on the right when it's always been on the left. Not cool! I'm so thankful for the person to provided a solution to the nightmare. Thank you @reginal79098089 and @jane-e

jane-e

Community Expert

You're welcome @Gwen31584783596p !

Jane

L

Louise in the Midwest

Participant

I couldn't agree more! I have never understood why the changes developers make happen when it seems there's no improvement and often takes a step backward. Making changes just for the sake of making a change with no real legitimate reason is the worst thing developers do.

An additional major problem with this new release is there's no option to open PDF documents independently. I HATE opening multiple documents within the app.

That said, I at least tried to give this new view a chance. I would continue to give it a chance, but not being able to open PDF files independently is why I'm changing back.

jane-e

Community Expert

An additional major problem with this new release is there's no option to open PDF documents independently. I HATE opening multiple documents within the app.
By @Louise in the Midwest

By now I'm sure you've disabled the "New Experience" following the instructions in the second reply in this thread.

Can you clarify your second issue?

What are the steps you are using to open PDFs "independently"?
How did it work before and how does it work now?
Are you on macOS or Windows?
What is your version (exact) of Acrobat?

Jane

L

Louise in the Midwest

Participant

Yes, I have changed back, but I'll clarify.

In the previous version, you could go to Edit>Preferences>General and, under Basic Tools, uncheck the option "Open documents as new tabs in the same window (requires relaunch)". This prevents PDF files from opening in the same Acrobat window as tabs. It's annoying that it's not available in the new version. That option alone would have me trying out the new version longer than just a couple days.

JR Boulay

Community Expert

The most notable innovation is the inversion between navigation panels and tool panels, and an impressive number of extra clicks to do the same task.
I guess it took a lot of brainstorming to come up with this result!

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe

Nancy OShea

Community Expert

Change is hard. But time marches on & nothing stays the same. Welcome to progress. 😁

If Adobe didn't innovate and make product improvements, you'd be just as unhappy but for other reasons. 🤔 🤔

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert

try67

Community Expert

There's change for the purpose of updating an application's functionality or ease-of-use and there's change for change's sake. I consider the latest changes to the Acrobat/Reader UI to be the latter, since they didn't add anything new to the application in terms of functionality, nor did they make it easier for users to access tools.

In fact, they did exactly the opposite. By swapping the locations of the Tools and Pages/Bookmarks/etc. panels and hiding the menu bar they caused a great deal of confusion for many users, and even broke the functionality of custom-made tools created for the application. Not to mention made many of the tutorials created for the application in the past obsolete, just because the tools needed are no longer in the same locations.

In short, I suspect it was only done because companies like to give their users the feeling they're getting their money's worth when they pay a subscription, and if nothing changes it's as if you're paying for the same old thing over and over again. In fact, people pay for an application like Acrobat for it be usable to them, not for it to be "pretty", so I think this was a huge miscalculation and mistake on Adobe's part.

Nancy OShea

Community Expert

@try67,

From our limited vantage point as product users, we don't always see the bigger picture.

Speaking as a web developer, I sometimes have to move furniture before I deploy new construction.

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert

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