Acrobat DC SO HORRIBLE it's making me want to cry.

This is by far the worst piece of software I've ever used from Adobe. We create large maps using ArcGIS and plot these map to a large format plotter. What a nightmare. What a joke. What a slow, sloow, slooow, PDF reader/viewer...Took forever just to get it to plot something over 30". It's like going backwards in time. You should be making your apps better, not worse.

Here is some feedback from an IT Professional on this whole "Cloud" suite from adobe. It is clearly not written from the advantage point of the user, but of the company. It has:

1. Updater you CANNOT turn off unless you alter the REGISTRY. Every user has to right to accept or not accept an update, especially as some updates can break perfectly working product, but Adobe has decided to force updates on everyone who is not a techie while leaving just enough wriggle room to avoid lawsuits on the claim it is impossible to turn off the updates so it's just impossible for the average user. Unfriendly, unethical, but not technically actionable. Cute.

2. If you are unfortunate enough to try to use the subscription model you have to install this HUGE bloat/rootkit tool call "Creative Cloud" and there is no obvious way of getting your reader without it. (They could have built in an expiry license model into the product but instead uses a product to monitor your ENTIRE computer). After seeing it, I decided to do away with it but...could not uninstall the create cloud kit (it would NOT uninstall) without uninstalling Adobe Acrobat DC pro first and even then, to it refused because I had other professional apps  from previous generation from adobe products which it decided counted under it's blank umbrella apps even though they were too old and never touched them. This qualifies as rootkit like behavior (some antivirus/security products do this too) requiring an external app to uninstall it. That is just poor behavior.

3. The Interface alone is much worse than Adobe 11 and the features, less  features but rather shackles. Adobe wants to use the model of Windows 10 (which I professional advise against, especially lawyers and medical professionals).

Conclusion: Follow a bad business model/behavior (Windows 10/Saas) you get a bad product. a reader that is 2.96 GB (?!?) and a client/enforcer that is several hundred megs). If that isn't bloatware (with monitoring, and if you don't say in simple language that it sends your data to the company, it's technically spyware folks. If you can, try the stand alone products but I suspect Adobe is already modifying those to behave similar to Acrobat DC so I suggest you research any updates to your adobe products carefully before you read them. It's a same when you can't trust your updates the way you used to.

I have not one production house on this the new Acrobat DC (Diarrhea Coding). it fulfills 20% of the items XI did. and there help is awful I remember when I good get answers the same day, this is not the Adobe I want! resembles old Quark Xpress!

Avoid Acrobat DC! Demand a version of XI!!!!!!!!

Will the real Acrobat please standup!!!!

***BUYER BEWARE***

Do not dismiss this thread. This version of Acrobat has completely shut down our govt business for months. We are in the process of developing a completely new workaround so we never have to use Adobe for ANYTHING EVER AGAIN. The support is as bad as the product. The cloud sucks and Adobe has no idea what they are doing with it so it makes it that much worse. EPIC FAILURE all around for ADOBE.

I don’t very often make complaints about software. Actually never. But in the case of Acrobat DC with the clipart icons, the rewrite and look of Acrobat makes my head hurt every time I open it. It is SO un-intuitive. It has brought me also to tears. I have been struggling with it for close on 6 months and nothing I do makes it easier. It is still hard to find what I need. I’ve been using the software since 2001 and I am gobsmacked it has been changed so much. It is like learning a new programme from scratch, knowing it does stuff but can’t find where on earth the damn tools have been put. I often just give up thinking I’ll come back to it later, I don’t have time for this now. Here's the thing - I’ve taken to making screen shots when it’s too hard to take into presentations and emailing images rather than PDFs. Seriously.

I honestly can’t state enough just how difficult this program has become from something that was so obviously simple.

As someone who managed a 12,000 seat Acrobat installation I've seen, read, and heard about every complaint that has been posted here.

I think something folks forget is how deeply Acrobat is integrated into Windows and the complexities that involves.  It hooks into the printer subsystem, font subsystem, window controls, Office, browsers, etc.  Adobe has to attempt to get this thing to install, properly, against all odds that the so-called 'computer experts' that tweak, tune, and generally make life miserable for software vendors can throw at them.  You know the ones, that install memory compressors, hack the registry, and refuse to install software in the vendors preferred location.

I've had my share of issues with Acrobat installs... invariably they have all boiled down to something we did (or didn't do) on our end.  The last 'Adobe's fault' install I ran into was 4.0.5 - which was pre-enterprise deployment toolkit.

Is Acrobat DC UI better than 9 (or X or XI), in my professional opinion - NO.  However, it wasn't written for me.  It was written for first-time customers.  Was that decision myopic?  That's debatable.  Could they have done better?  I would say, Yes.

Has Adobe Reader become 'larger than life' - yes.  But in order to enable digital signatures, form fill-in and saving, commenting and saving, and Reader Extensions technology, you pretty much have to deploy the full Acrobat engine to make this work.  The primary deployment difference between Reader and Acrobat are in the available plugins.  That's it.

What the heck is DC?  DC is the cloud-based document interchange facility that is integrated with Acrobat and Reader.  Other than the DC extensions, Acrobat and Reader are exactly the same as they've always been... local desktop apps.

For folks that need to post Acrobat deployments to multiple employees - be sure to check out the Enterprise Deployment pages. The work you spend in there will save you support calls later.

As for the 'competition' - In the past year I evaluated 12 different PDF desktop creation products.  From vendors large and small.  From expensive to cheap.  Only one - yes ONE! was able to create a PDF that was even close to Acrobat. These were not some convoluted torture test where I was trying to game the system in favor of Adobe.  It was a test designed so that I didn't have to deal with a support call regarding a short-sighted vendor decision.  The test was very simple and straight forward... would the tool embed fonts properly (not just Windows standard TTF, but run-of-the-mill third-party OpenTypes from reputable vendors (e.g. Monotype Imaging, FontFont GmbH, Adobe, etc.), would it convert a Word vector drawing as vector, would the colors in a bitmap be reasonably close to the originals, etc.  Basically the day to day work that any company or organization would do and expect out of their PDF creation product.

So, you can take your chances with a third-party tool, do the testing yourself, or go with a product (that I agree, has grown more than a few warts), that continues to drill that 1/4" hole - straight and true - each and every time.

Thanks

Doug

Wow I didn't realise so many people felt the way I do, I just thought I'd Google "why is Adobe so s***" and was amazed I came up with this. Just like a previous comment I just signed up to this forum to basically agree with absolutely everyone's complaints. The people who run Adobe (and obviously MS and Apple etc.) are clearly living in a completely different universe to the majority of 'normal' people.

I upgraded from Acrobat 8 (which I love) and was excited to see all the new improvements.  Instead, I am looking at a program that is taking me 20 steps backwards! Here is just the tip of the iceberg of my disappointments:

1. The toolbar can't be customized like in Acrobat 8.  I am very limited in how I can move the icons around.  I don't see where I can make the toolbar bigger so more than one line of icons show (like in Acrobat 8).
2. I now have to click on the tool EVERY time i need to use it!  In Acrobat 8, I could click the Line tool once and use it as many times as I wanted in my document.  I do a lot of commenting and this is an absolute deal breaker if this is the case.
3. The Page thumbnails and bookmarks side bar used to show up automatically (Acrobat 8) and now I don't see in the Preferences that this is even an option.
4. The option for Continuous scrolling is on, but I have to check it again every new document!
5. I also agree about the kindergarten icons.
6. I used to be able to drag pages from one pdf to another (Acrobat 8), but now it won't let me!? (another deal breaker for me).

I had to upgrade because I went to Windows 10 and lost the ability to use Acrobat 8 as my default program (I could choose it, but it did not ever stick).  Does anyone know if Acrobat XI works in Windows 10 and keeps the same functionality as Acrobat 8???

Ditto. I so share your frustration! Simple things now take more steps. And the ginormous dialog boxes and buttons are ridiculous. And WHY has another window been added to a "Save As" command?! Just awful.

Thanks for this feedback. I had the same Problem (no "issue") and I uninstalled DC version and was able to Install the Reader XI.  I was eager to comment my Problem. I can't believe that if I install this DC I have no option to decide if and when to install its updates.

I don't need any Cloud. I want to be free to decide what to install on my devices.

It was not possible to send a short and direct feedback to Adobe. I was thinking I was so stupid to find out how to do it. Some how I feel that Adobe doesn't want any feed back from the users.

Thanks again for your comment.