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Participating Frequently
March 19, 2019
Question

Has Adobe Fixed The Size Of Grab Handles Yet?

  • March 19, 2019
  • 2 replies
  • 2042 views

Some years back Adobe changed the way grab handles work on callouts.  The grab handles, or whatever those white squares in the corners are called, are so ridiculously large that you have to zoom way in to be able to fit your cursor inside the callout itself before being able to move the callout to a new location.

I use Acrobat on a daily basis and love the program, so I am in now way bashing Adobe, I'm just looking for a solution to this problem that didn't use to exist.  Acrobat didn't use to have these ridiculously large grab handles, so I just want it to go back to how it used to be.

I'm still using Acrobat Pro DC.  It is Version 2015.006.30-482.  I'd be happy to ask my company to upgrade to a newer version if it doesn't this very annoying issue.

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

Participant
April 15, 2019

Sorry for the late response. Just got busy and forgot about it for a while.

Anyway, I have uploaded a sample document as requested that displays the undesired behavior.

Adobe Document Cloud

I am using a Dell laptop with an i7 processor running Windows 10. However, when I first received the laptop it had Windows 8. The extremely large object handles were present in Windows 8 too.

I am using Adobe Acrobat Standard 2015.006.30493 which was already installed when I received this machine.

On a related note, Acrobat has been running very slowly. Maybe this is intentional to push users to update their software.

Bernd Alheit
Community Expert
Community Expert
April 15, 2019

Using version 2019.010.20099:

Bernd Alheit
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 20, 2019

Where can you see white squares? Can you post a screenshot?

Participating Frequently
March 20, 2019

I'm at home at the moment, so I can only demonstrate the way Acrobat used to behave, as I'm using Acrobat Pro XI at home.

Here is a screenshot showing how I wish Acrobat DC that I use at work behaved.

Here is that same callout, showing how it looks when I'm zoomed way out.  You'll see the eight white boxes, which I'm calling grab handles, are still small enough that you can easily still read the contents of the callout and you could also very easily click your mouse inside of the callout box in order to drag it around to a different position.

Now, if you look over to the side pane of this Adobe webpage, you'll see they are recommending a few different threads that are similar to my question.

One is called "Object Handle Size" and the other is called "Object Handles Too Large".  Those didn't show up for me when I did my initial search before posting my question, but I did notice them last night and they are complaining of the same exact behavior.

Here is the "Object Handle Size" thread: https://forums.adobe.com/message/8346512#8346512

Here is the "Object Handles Too Large" thread: https://forums.adobe.com/message/8342839#8342839

If you open up either of those threads, which appear to be started by the same user named "", you'll see the following examples that he posted of the undesirable behavior.

As you can see, in these examples, the 'Grab Handles' as I'm calling them, and the 'Object Handles' as VJB1976 is calling them, are ridiculously large.  You can't see the contents of the callout, nor can you click inside the callout to move it around unless you zoom so far in, that you are then limited to just how far you can move it without having to deselect it, move the page around, then reselect it and move it some more.

I know Adobe knows how to fix this, as in my personal copy of Acrobat XI I'm still using at home it works fine, as did every other version of Acrobat I've purchased over the years before XI.  It was only in DC that the issue started and only after one of their updates.  If Adobe has given up on DC and fixed this in the newer versions of Acrobat then I'll try to convince my employer that they need to pay to upgrade me to a newer version of Acrobat. If the newer versions have this same ridiculous behavior, then there is no point in upgrading.

Participating Frequently
March 20, 2019

I just searched through the Acrobat Help site and it appears that what I'm calling 'Grab Handles', Adobe refers to as simply 'Handles' or 'Selection Handles'.

https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/11/using/commenting-pdfs.html

"After you add a comment, it stays selected until you click elsewhere on the page. Acrobat highlights a selected comment with a blue halo to help you find the markup on the page. A wireframe with selection handles appears on drawing markups and stamps, so that you can adjust the size and shape."