How to feedback to Adobe re: almost unusable Acrobat?

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
May 6, 2021
2 replies
1370 views

Acrobat 2020 suffers from the most ridiculous complicated interface. Buttons are on three sides for the page for no apparent reason. Finding oft used features, such as thumbnails are buried away. Inexplicably, there is a proprietary file browser that makes does not integrate with a Mac, and makes it REALLY HARD to save a file in the correct location.

It takes hours, if not days, if it works at all to upload a file for review or share. They do not synchronise reliably across machines.

I currently cannot close a PDF due to a prompt that I will loose work. The button options are 'Close anyway' or 'OK'. There is no logic to this? It is NOT OK???

Bit of a rant, but how do I get these concerns to Adobe? I have a large collection of screengrabs. What has happened to the app? It used to be intuitive and much more functional.

This topic has been closed for replies.

gary_sc

Community Expert

I'm going to take a guess that you are coming from Acrobat 9, the release just prior to "The Big Change."

Like you, I was horrified with the change and apparently a lot of users were as well becuase things didn't settle down until Acrobat XI.

The problem with the UI of Acrobat prior to X is that it was a complete hodgepodge "let's see, where can we stick the new and different features." But the change was progressive so at each new version of the application, the process was not too bad for old users but a nightmare for new users. However, now that all the dust has settled, it was a good and necessary thing to have done. Yes, there are things that could have been done better and there are a number of features that are not "elegant," but this (no longer) new UI is worth the learning curve to efficiency.

And by all means, do send off your ideas, wishes, and complaints to the link provided by Document Geek.

N

NathanTJAuthor

Participant

Thanks for the balanced reply. I just looked at the UI again. The issue is, I'm a designer and there is just visual junk all over the Acrobat chrome. It is only an amateur designer that uses left aligned, centred and right aligned on the same eyeline!

The proprietary file browser is just a barrier to saving files. Use the OS interface/features, like any other app. This is common knowledge to anyone in web work, for example. The tab chrome doesn't even match otehr Adobe products, such as Photoshop and Illustrator (which also have their own idiosyncrasies of inconsistency).

View/Show/Hide/Navigation panes/Thumbnails - seriously??? That is just buried. There is an accessibility failure here too. Try navigating that on a laptop trackpad. If I had any kind of moility issue, it would be near impossible to open the eh thumbnail pane. Hiding the tools pane requires using the show/Hide menu, then using another idon to actually hide it. It's what I call a Friday afternoon job.

I am going to provide feedback on the link above, but I literally can't look at this ugly mess of an interface when trying to look at PDF artwork. It is a major impediment to the actual work it is supposed to help produce.