Acrobat DC Action Wizard broken with latest update

[Aaron Tipton]

A very simple action I've been using to save optimized versions of print PDF no longer works on multiple files. It will run on a single file, but running it on more than one file fails, which makes it useless. Now it just opens a blank Untitled PDF and stops. Recreating the action or importing from the previous export didn't fix it. Unlike other apps, Adobe CC doesn't allow me to install previous versions of Acrobat DC for whatever reason, so I have no way to revert to the previous working version and can no longer optimize PDFs in bulk.

[creative explorer · Accepted solution]

@Aaron Tipton If your goal is only to reduce file size, you can bypass the Action Wizard completely using the built-in batch save feature, which is more stable for this one task. Go to File > Save As Other > Reduced Size PDF. In the "Reduce File Size" dialog, set your Acrobat Version Compatibility (e.g., Acrobat 10 and later, or whichever is appropriate). In the "Save As" dialog that appears, click "Apply to Multiple" In the "Batch Reduce File Size" dialog, add your folder of files and specify your output folder. This method will succeed where the Action Wizard fails because it uses a more direct, dedicated routine for bulk reduction

[Aaron Tipton]

Yes, that worked great, thank you so much! 🙌 I still hope Adobe can address and fix the broken feature. Disappointing when they do things like this especially when we have no option to revert to a working version of the software as in this case. But thank you again for your help @creative explorer ! ❤️