Acrobat always asks to save changes, even with no changes

Report · Feb 09, 2018

Recently Acrobat DC has started asking about saving changes before closing upon opening every single PDF document. No changes have been made ever, yet it still asks and forces me to answer to get out of the document.

I have read other articles that mentioned possibly corrupt PDF documents, but I don't think that is relevant as it happens on every document. I have even created new PDFs from blank Word documents. This also happens with others in my organization.

Any ideas on how to get rid of this very annoying, unnecessary, and time-wasting prompt?

Report · Feb 09, 2018

If this truly is happening with all PDF files, regardless of their source, then something in your Acrobat installation is modifying these files. This can for example be a plug-in. Do you have any 3rd party plug-ins installed? If you don't know, or if there are 3rd party plug-ins, I would bring up Acrobat without these plug-ins to see if that changes this behavior. You can disable all 3rd party plug-ins by opening Acrobat's Preferences, then go to the "General" category and check the box "Use only certified plug-ins" - only plug-ins that come with Acrobat are certified, so this will disable all 3rd party plug-ins. After you make this change and restart Acrobat, do you still see the save prompt?

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Report · Jul 29, 2022

Help/ Repair Installation worked for me.

Report · Feb 12, 2023

None of the answers here was useful for me. None worked. It's not about repairing the program. The allegation that the file is being modified behind the scenes by some plugin (in Reader???) also doesn't make any sense at all. If the Reader or a plug-in is modifying the file without the user being aware of it, then it's up to them to save the file, not the user.

This save prompt is a huge no-no, it's annoying, it's anti-productive, it's non-sensical, it's frustrating, even more in Reader, which is supposed to only display the file, not change them. If somebody finds the fix for this, without it being another false lead, please let me know. There are many users here chanting victory too soon, before the thing is actually proven to work, which is misleading newly arrived users like me (I thought I had found the answer, only to be disappointed after reading more).

Report · Jun 02, 2023

Adobe software has always been annoying, user unfriendly, nonsensical etc. In my opinion. I have never liked Adobe. But Adobe PDF is so standard you can´t be without it. I also have the Save-problem when opening and closing do PDF files. It drives me crazy.

Report · Dec 26, 2024

That's so true. Back in the days Adobe flash was ubiquitous on the web, just like pdf is today. The software was so buggy and insecure that an effort by web companies was made to build an alternative and kick Adobe flash out of the standard web. I wish the same thing would be done for pdfs.
This saving bug is a good exemple of the issue wih Adobe. It has happened to so many people for years, is extremely annoying, and could be fixed very easily and yet they do noting. At least they could allow the option to choose a default option for all files when closing multiple pdfs. But no, they won't even do that.

Report · Dec 26, 2024

You can confusing issues with the platform and the format. The PDF format is extremely stable and is not going to be replaced any time soon. Adobe's Acrobat and Reader, on the other hand, are becoming more and more unstable and full of bugs with every new release, unfortunately. I wish they would focus their energy on fixing these issues instead of on a new UI or AI-features (which are nice to have, but not at the expense of the core functionality of the application and its stability).

Report · Apr 10, 2024

Agree. It's crap.

Only happens to me with some pdfs, not all. But cannot stop it when it does.

You'd think the developers could come up with a solution to this.

Report · Feb 12, 2023

I saw one answer in the Stack Exchange sites that is from way back in 2012 (and was hopeful that it would be the silver bullet, but the answerer himself acknolwedges that it's all that he could think of). It's unbelievable that these people still didn't fix this garbage since 2012. I am very angry and annoyed about this. This type of thing just makes us want to minimize Adobe files usage (if not run away from it entirely). This is very poor software development practices.

Report · Apr 01, 2023

Hi, in print dialoge untick 'save toner', seemed to work for me.

Report · Jul 20, 2023

Repair Installation worked for me. Had to restart my computer afterwards but then it worked.

Good luck!

Report · Feb 27, 2025

Disabling the plugin worked, but I need the plugin so I perfomed Repair Installation after reenabling the plugin and the issue appears to be resolved for the time being!

Report · Feb 27, 2025

Well that fix didn't last long 😞

I need the plug in so I guess I'm stuck with the problem..

Report · Apr 23, 2025

Hi @Angie 1219,

Hope you are doing well. Thanks for writing in!

If you are sure about the faulty plugin that causes the issue with Acrobat, I would suggest reaching out to the manufacturer of the plugin and let them know of the situation.

In most cases, they would be able to provide you with an upgraded version which would be better compatible with the latest versions of Acrobat.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Souvik.

Report · Jun 02, 2025

I discovered that the plugin was in fact modifying the file. I was able to adjust settings within the plugin and the behavior stopped. I can now open and close non modified pdf files without being prompted to save them!