After installing Acrobat Pro DC, I can no longer open files in Acrobat Reader

Question

Hi all,

I've been using Acrobat Reader DC for a while (as this is the reader mandated by our company) and yesterday also installed Acrobat Pro DC (as I now need to created protected documents).

While I want to use Acrobat Pro when creating documents, I still wish to open and read documents in Acrobat Reader to ensure that I see documents (and any limitations) that my co-workers/customers would see. My windows file association for .pdf documents still points to Acrobat Reader DC but when I open a .pdf file, it opens in Acrobat Pro. Even if I right-click a .pdf file and click 'Open With > Acrobat Reader DC' it still opens in Acrobat Pro. The only way I have found to get around this issue is to open Acrobat Reader and then open the file from within it (or drag and drop the file onto the window).

Is there some way to prevent Acrobat Pro from stealing control of these files?

Thank you,

Richard

AnandSri · Accepted Answer

It would be helpful to know this before I decided to try Acrobat Pro DC. After I decided Reader was sufficient for what I needed, I cancelled the Pro DC subscription. Unfortunately, now I can't use Reader. I get a PDF document with lots of opportunities to purchase Pro DC, but no functionality. I've uninstalled Pro DC and reinstalled Reader twice with no success. Pro DC has highjacked my computer. So, I email documents to my home computer, edit them there, and email them back to my work computer. I guess I need to wait until I get a new computer to be efficient again. Very inconvenient. A warning would have been nice.

Hello,

I hope you're doing well, and we apologize for the delayed response and the trouble.

If you're attempting to access paid services, the installed freeware Acrobat Reader app may prompt you to subscribe to Acrobat. If you prefer to use only the free Acrobat Reader, you can run the Acrobat Cleaner Tool to remove the current installation along with any conflicting or corrupted files. Afterward, restart your machine and reinstall the freeware Acrobat Reader.

I hope this helps.

Thanks,

Anand Sri.

Amal. · Answer

Hi Richard

Hope you are doing well and sorry for the trouble. As described you opening the PDF file with Acrobat Reader DC and it opens with Acrobat Pro DC.

Installing Adobe Acrobat Reader and Acrobat Pro DC on the same machine is ideally not recommended as Acrobat Reader is a subset of Acrobat Pro DC application.

Also as Acrobat Pro DC is the superset of Acrobat Reader DC it takes the PDF ownership by default.

As mentioned, on right clicking the PDF and selecting 'Open with Acrobat Reader' the file still opens with Acrobat Pro DC, this should not be the case, please try to reboot the computer once, also make sure you have the latest version of the applications. Go to Help menu > Check for updates and reboot the computer again.

If it still doesn't work, please create a new test user profile with full admin rights in Windows or enable the root account in Mac and try using the application there and check.

Regards

Amal

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