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Participant
November 18, 2021
Question

Adobe Acrobat is by far the worst program I've ever used

  • November 18, 2021
  • 14 replies
  • 6683 views

Updated almost weekly with minial feature advancements or performance improvements in sight, this horrific tool needs a re-write.

 

I cannot believe the industry tolerate such garbage.

14 replies

Participant
September 5, 2025

I second, third and fourth this message despite providing no details. I think it truly covers it... I am an IT Director, I have been working in web development since web, and I am a pro photographer. I could/would write a BOOK on how unintuitive, slow, clunky, driver incompatible, etc., Adobe products are if I hadn't already wasted literally hundreds of hours on dealing with figuring it out. Editing PDFs is both SIMPLE and TEDIOUS, SLOW and FRUSTRATING simultaneously. 

 

Great example of how poorly coded these apps are. Lightroom Classic on my Alienware is slow to detect faces etc. It's unusable on standard laptops without discrete graphics. But, they Android Lightroom? Does the same detections nearly instantly... It's not WHAT it does, but HOW it does it. 

 

Oh - and the billing is terrible. It takes me so long to find all my invoices to pay them with our enterprise account... They are all over the place. IDK. They can only rely on laurels so long in the AI era. 

Amal.
Community Manager
Community Manager
September 8, 2025

Hi there,

Hope you are doing well and thank you for sharing your feedback.

 

We’re sorry to hear about your frustrations with Acrobat, Lightroom, and billing. We know how important it is for tools to work smoothly, especially when you rely on them every day.

PDF editing/Acrobat: If you can share details like your OS, app version, and when the slowdown happens, we can try to investigate further.

Lightroom performance: We understand the difference you’re seeing between desktop and mobile. We share feedback like this with our product teams so they can keep improving performance.

 

Billing: For enterprise accounts, invoices should be available in the Adobe Admin Console. If you’re still having trouble finding them, please reach out through your Admin Console support so the billing team can help directly.

Your feedback is very valuable, and we’ll make sure it’s passed along to the right teams.

 

Regards

Amal

 

 

Participant
August 5, 2025

Yes it is utter tripe. I have been tolerating it and paying for it for far too long now, just because im lazy and its easier to do nothing than change. Now I can't stand it any longer, Im canceling my subscription and moving to Foxit.  All of a sudden 'there was an error opening this document access denied'.  It opens just fine in every other PDF editor and web browser. It opened just fine yesterday.  I no longer have time left in my life to spend hours debugging this overpriced garbage myself. Adobe i'm done with you. 

Participant
July 27, 2025

Experiencing the exact same problems as everyone else on this forum. A technical manual I had been writing for two day suddenly took the liberty of reformatting all the text and eliminating letters that it didn't like(?).  Was going to buy the Creative Cloud but after this that will be a hard NO!. Disgustingly slow, switching between the tool sets are a pain and slow of course. I have time to post this because it's waiting to post text that I wrote 3 minutes ago.

Participant
February 9, 2025

At first, I thought, well, maybe you just need to get used to this program and its functions, just like I had to learn how to use PCB design software, Autodesk, etc. But now that I’m reading these posts... DAMN, this program is the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life. First, I used that (cursing removed) program InDesign to create a layout, which took me a few days—just for a very SIMPLE layout. Now that I have that, I’m faced with junk that ain’t able to do! Every function in that program is absolutely stupid. I feel ashamed that this was made by humans—this program is an insult to our race! Everyone who was involved in Acrobat should get lifetime imprisonment!

 

[Abuse removed by moderator]

Participant
February 9, 2025

This is the first and last time I’m using Adobe! I feel sorry for the people who paid for this!

Participant
April 3, 2025

Please share the alternative. As a business owner, I have to sign and send pdfs all the time. But it is barely usable, mainly because it doesn't recognize me as a subscriber, won't download the app to my pc, and can't load my documents without offering me a free trial every time (even though I pay monthly.) I've been looking for reliable information on another program, without luck.

Participant
November 7, 2024

Dear Adobe:

 

Clearly a lot of us have typed in nearly OP's exact title into a search out of utter frustration and incredulity that this program could be so consistently terrible in both design and function, year after year after year. It truly is both bewildering and impressive to make such absolute garbage and charge such a ridiculous amount of money for it, as if you are actually providing something that works. Stop pretending that you're trying to do a good job, it's obvious that you're not! Most of the updates are tiny, and sometimes you rearrange the UI in an attempt to make users feel like you are doing stuff and therefore justify the cost. We are laughing at you as soon as we stop crying.

 

I don't believe in ghosts, but using Acrobat for years has really challenged that because your software must be haunted. It is constantly behaving in inconsistent and unpredictable ways, almost like some poltergeist is in there mucking around. As a company, maybe it's time to take a good look in the mirror and realize that the whole "fake it till you make it" thing really doesn't work as an entire business model. Do us a favor and die so something worthy can grow out of your bug-ridden corpse. Byeeeeee

Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
Legend
November 11, 2024

@You make bad software, I'm not Adobe. Just a users like you.

Did you try reverting to the classic interface in your version of Acrobat Pro?

 

|    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |
Participant
November 12, 2024

Hi Bevi, 

I don't see how my post and your response to it are connected. Please elaborate as to how reverting to the classic interface would relate to my post.

 

Thank you!

Participant
September 19, 2024

Totally agree.  Trying to do exams on it and every time I try to save it crashes....work all gone.  Bought the Pro version..no better. Won't even allow me to upload phots of the pop ups..... Utter garbage

Participant
April 30, 2024

Couldn't agree more.  This garbage is an insult to the concept of computer programing.  I use it because I have no choice.  Everything I use it for, I get it done, then never ever interact with it again.

Participant
March 28, 2024

I've been writing software for 40 years, I've never seen a program with more bugs, ever. It is damn near impossible to use.

 

Does Adobe even have a single QA resource? Even one? I suspect not!

Participant
March 22, 2024

Random locking of files with out a clue as to what password must be used, no reset no forgot password. It is the standard and will not improve for us lowlifes.

Congratulations Adobe

Amal.
Community Manager
Community Manager
March 26, 2024

Hi there

 

Adobe Acrobat doesn't apply password protection by itself.

 

Would you mind sharing more details about the issue you are experiencing? A small video recording of the steps you are doing would be very helpful.

 

What is the version of the Acrobat DC you are using? To check the version go to Help > About Acrobat and make sure you have the recent version 24.01.20615 installed. Go to Help > Check for updates and reboot the computer once.

Also try to repair the installation from the help menu (Win Only) and see if that works.

Please try to reset the Acrobat preferences as described here https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-discussions/how-to-reset-acrobat-preference-settings-to-default/td-p/4792082 and see if that helps.

 

Let us know how it goes.

 

~Amal

Participant
February 18, 2024

I agree with this assesment. I thought Adobe invented teh PDF. Have some pride.

Take a look at Bluebeam and see how you can improve.