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Participant
June 22, 2023
Answered

Why change everything?

  • June 22, 2023
  • 91 replies
  • 219333 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 Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
quote

Was this even tested before it was released to the public?

By @DCProud 202

 

Adobe has pre-release testers for all the Creative Suite programs and Acrobat. Occassionally I see Adobe announce for people to join the testing program.

 

Many of us community experts here in the forums are testers for Adobe, and many of us have been doing this since the 1980s and 1990s. 

 

I can't recall much positive feedback from the testers before the "modern" Acrobat was released to the public. I know my comments back to the engineers were fairly extensive. Some things were improved (darkening the icons from a light gray to a dark gray, for example). But for the most part, the comments have fallen on deaf ears.

 

Over the past 18 months, I personally have continued to use and test the newest beta releases, but I often have to abandon them and switch to another computer that runs the "classic" interface. I have only so much time to donate to Adobe to dignose problems (and provide detailed bug reports and comments to the engineers). I, like most folks here, have a job to do. Working for free for Adobe is not on my to-do list.

 

3 suggestions:

  1. Disable the new Acrobat and revert back to the "classic" interface. I believe that all of the old functionality is still active there.
  2. Join the Acrobat beta testing group. I don't know where to direct you to join, but try searching for a public page in the Acrobat section of Adobe's website.
  3. Consider another brand of PDF editing software. The PDF file format was placed into the public domain about 15 years ago and since then, other companies have developed competing programs. Wikipedia has a decent list of other brands. One of our favorites is ABBY Fine Reader/PDF.

 

But note that none of these competing programs have all the features of Acrobat, so if you're in certain industries, you're really stuck with Adobe Acrobat. These industry-specific features include:

  • Accessible PDFs and documents
  • PDF forms
  • Printing, graphic arts, and preflighting for print
  • Security
  • Digital signatures
  • Automated PDF documents (aka, stuff like bank statements created from a database a on grand scale)

 

So see if any other alternative brand gets the job done for you. Be careful of the company's country of origin: you might not be able to install software from certain countries, which is the case here in the US for government computers.  Example: FoxIt is a Chinese company and usually is not allowed on our government clients' computers.

 

As always, don't forget to voice your comments on UserVoice and click the button to VOTE. That is the only place where Adobe takes notice of customers.

 

Let Adobe know:

You can voice your opinion about the new interface at UserVoice: https://acrobat.uservoice.com/forums/590923-acrobat-for-windows-and-mac/suggestions/47082691-ditch-t... 

 

Be sure to leave a comment about your experience with the new interface. They need to hear from users. And don't forget to click the VOTE button.

 

FYI, UserVoice is Adobe's official website where it reads and takes into account suggestions and complaints from users of its various products.  On the other hand, this community forum is a user-to-user help forum.

 

91 replies

Participant
March 25, 2025

The new Acrobat took acrobat backwards and made it FAAAAAAR worse - Old Acrobat, I think was practically perfect. Stop trying to fix things are not broken. 

Known Participant
March 25, 2025

Sadly, even the older interface has become impossibly buggy.  Twice in the last three weeks, I've had to get technical suppport because Acrobat had slowed to the point it was taking 40 seconds or more just to open or close a file.  

 

But I'm now doing something that I encourage everyone else to do also.  I'm writing a complaint letter to Adobe's CEO.  

 

Known Participant
October 24, 2024

Adobe did it again.  I was having trouble with Acrobat again this morning.  Now I know why.  Adobe tried to force the new version on me again.  

 

Fortunately, I quickly found how to extricate myself from that misery ... instructions that I now share with everyone here ...

 

For Mac:  Go to the View menu and select Disable New Acrobat.  After disabling the new experience, you can restart the app and it will open with the previous version. The keyboard shortcuts will still work the same.

 

For Windows: Select the hamburger menu in the upper left corner and choose Disable New Acrobat

Participant
October 24, 2024

Any sane company would track the number of people who did that and determine if they made a mistake like companies that change logos and end up reverting. OR ask users for feedback

PDF Automation Station
Community Expert
Community Expert
October 24, 2024

As long as you have the option to revert to the original, it's all good.   BUT, if they ever remove that option because they don't want to maintain 2 systems, it will be a HUGE problem.

Participant
October 23, 2024

100% giving up on using Adobe's pdf products even for the slightest thing now that I have Bluebeam.  It's just endless stuff like this from them with Acrobat & Reader and I've had enough.

Participant
October 21, 2024

1 year later and this is still so relevant. Did anyone ASK for a forced AI-companion update? No? Then whyyyyyyyyyyy? lol

Participant
October 18, 2024

I agree with the dissappoval of the layout, my company pressures me to use the microsoft knock off but I get a lot more done with Acrobat but not if I have to chase useless changes and relearn the program.  Not a wise thing to do. 

kglad
Community Expert
Community Expert
October 18, 2024

just use the layout you want.

Participant
October 7, 2024

100% agree, and the new interface is so laggy too. Doesn't make any sense to me. 

Participant
September 25, 2024

cuz they have nothing better to do!!! creating work for them and more work for us!!! Why fix then not broke... 

Participant
September 21, 2024

Oh thank god it can be reverted, this new version is total garbage, i'm sorry if that hurts anyone's feelings but really, I didn't know I could hate something so much until I tried using this

Known Participant
September 11, 2024

I recommend writing letters of complaint to Adobe's CEO, Shantanu Narayen, at Adobe's headquarters (345 Park Avenue in San Jose, CA 95110).  That's what I've been doing.  I received an email response from someone who actually read my complaints ... not that it has resulted in Adobe ditching the terrible version.  But I did implore him to pay attention to these discussion boards. 

 

While it hasn't made a difference yet with regard to the horrible new platform, I did get *some* assistance after complaining that Acrobat's redaction feature failed after a recent update to the older platform.  I could no longer redact documents and had to ask a coworker who uses a PC (versus my Mac) to help me.  Adobe finally fixed that. 

 

I'm not done raising my voice either.  I complained to the Better Business Bureau about the horrible Acrobat platform as well as other problems.  Apple and Adobe have conspired to keep customers from being able to view older clipart thumbnails either in Finder or in Illustrator.  (I have to open every individual file in Illustrator to see the images.  Some, not all, can be seen via Bridge, but the quality is horrible and doesn't reflect what the images actually look like.)  I've invested hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars in clipart that I can't view.  It's exceeding time consuming to search images in a printed image catalog.  And viewing the 1-inch thumbnails in the printed catalog is giving me eyestrain.  Since neither Apple nor Adobe is willing to resolve this problem and restore the ability to preview thumbnails, I will file other complaints, such as with the Federal Trade Commission.  

 

Adobe is making other changes to harm customers.  I wanted to update an InDesign document the other day, but was immediately stopped by a warning that Adobe no longer supported the Zapf Dingbats font that I used for a symbol dozens of times in the document.  I didn't have time to mess with it and had to defer updating my document.  

 

I recently learned that Adobe's software no longer contains the Pantone color palette.  So I had to get help from the company that prints my books to determine the correct CMYK percentages to obtain the color I wanted.  

 

It's time that We the People make a lot of noise, not just here but in letters and complaints to Adobe's CEO and in complaints to the Better Business Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission, and other resources.  

JR Boulay
Community Expert
Community Expert
September 11, 2024

Can you share the letter you sent to Shantanu Narayen, or a model we could use?

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe
Known Participant
September 11, 2024

I'd prefer not to, since it was personal to my experience.  But thank you for asking. 

Tiger_words
Inspiring
September 10, 2024

 

@reginal79098089 

 

You have to understand something:  Programmers/software engineers are paid employees.  If they don't stop working, they'll get laid off.  They can never say, "Hey boss, we're done..."  So they create new features and "improvements" to keep busy.  It's an unfortunate reality. 

Nancy OShea
Community Expert
Community Expert
September 11, 2024
quote

 

If they don't stop working, they'll get laid off. 

By @Tiger_words

=============

Makes no sense.

 

Decisions about product development originate with executives & bean counters at the very top of the food chain, not the bottom. 

 

 

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert