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Participating Frequently
August 11, 2022
Question

Default to Hand/Pan tool instead of Arrow/Selection tool

  • August 11, 2022
  • 1 reply
  • 9439 views

With this latest update, none of the workarounds to have Acrobat default to the Hand/Pan tool posted throughout the years no longer work.  Accessibility fix, Touch Mode fix, etc.  None work.

 

The work around in our office that has been working for us for years has been Edit -> Preferences -> General -> Touch Mode -> Always.

 

It works initially, but then you close out of a file and open again it goes back to Arrow/Selection.

 

After all these years, with all of the verified complaints online, why have they not fixed this issue and simply set the default to Hand/Pan?

 

Has anyone come up with any other "workarounds"?

 

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

AkanchhaS8194121
Legend
August 12, 2022

Hi,

We understand this could be frustrating at some point. But it's designed purposefully, as half of the user's requirement is to set Hand Tool as default, and the other half is to make Select tool as default. 

When the program detects that the user is using a touch screen, it selects the hand tool. 
But when it detects that no touch input/display is connected, it selects a selection tool (cursor) for using with the mouse.

So you need to set the touch mode option to >Always. Thus the program will always presume that the user is in touch mode and give you the hand tool as default.

  • In Edit>Preferences>Accessibility>CHECK "Always display the keyboard selection cursor">Click OK (this was unchecked by default)
  • In Edit>Preferences>General - Change Touch Mode to Always (This was Auto-detect by default)

 

Hope this helps!

 

Thanks,

Akanchha 

RWuiAuthor
Participating Frequently
August 12, 2022

Hi Akancha,

 

What you suggested is actually what we have been doing.  But in this latest update, even after setting Touch Mode to Always, when opening a new file, it goes to back the Arrow/Selction tool even with Touch Mode set to Always.

 

This work around no longer works.

 

This would be so much easier if Adobe would simply create a simple option in Preferences to start with one tool or the other.  

AkanchhaS8194121
Legend
August 15, 2022

Thanks for sharing your observation. 

If the changes are not implemented after installing the latest version, please share the following details for further investigation.

1-Screenshot of the current Acrobat version installed on your computer. Open Acrobat>help>About Adobe Acrobat

2- Open Acrobat>help>About Acrobat (Win) and click on Adobe Acrobat>About Adobe Acrobat 

Navigate to Acrobat>Edit>Preferences>Security (Enhanced)>disable "Protected View" and "Enhanced Security">OK>close and reopen Acrobat.

Note: these changes are only for testing purposes. Once tested, please change it back to the previous setting. 

 

If the suggestion above doesn't work, share the following logs.

Adobe CC logs https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/kb/cc-log-collector.html  and share them via document cloud as explained here https://helpx.adobe.com/document-cloud/help/sharing-pdfs.html

ProcmonLogs :

https://www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/acrobatetk/tools/Labs/acromonitor.html 

 

Thanks,

Akanchha