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Participant
February 12, 2026
Question

Error message ("This document contains embedded actions (e.g. OpenAction or Additional Actions)...") when signing document in Acrobat, caused by setting the 'Initial view - Magnification' setting?

  • February 12, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 37 views

A coworker reported this error message today when trying to digitally sign a document in Acrobat:
 

"This document contains embedded actions (e.g. OpenAction or Additional Actions). These actions are supported in this version of Acrobat, but may be disabled in future versions. For long-term compatibility, consider requesting a version without embedded actions form the document author."


The error message includes a link to this page with a bit more information:
https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/embedded-action-signing-warning.html



Given that we produce a lot of documents that are signed by the public, this message was concerning. The documents don't have any JavaScript or anything added by us, although some PDFs were exported from InDesign. The staff member is using version 2025.001.20997. This error doesn't seem to happen in earlier Acrobat versions, we also tested with 2025.001.20630.
 

We did a little more troubleshooting and found that the error message appears only if you set the 'Initial View -> Magnification' setting to anything other than 'Default'. If you leave this setting at 'Default', no error message appears when signing the document. This setting must be adding some sort of OpenAction that is triggering the error message. I anticipate we're going to get a lot of reports about this once all our users are updated to the latest version of Acrobat.
 

Has anyone else run into this?
 

This makes me wonder, is Adobe getting ready to deprecate other 'Initial View' settings?
 

1 reply

creative explorer
Community Expert
Community Expert
February 14, 2026

@Christopher221775325v28 I do things a little different. I have my Acrobat Settings set to default or automatic: Command K (MAC) Control K (PC) to open Acrobat Preferences

Page Display:
 

 

Accessibility:
 


and when I am working in InDesign, and need to export a PDF, the viewing is always set to default
 

 

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