Blocked from downloading a PDF that I paid for; Adobe's auto bot is unhelpful

[williamd89979732]

After several days it is plain that Adobe will not allow me to pose this issue to a person who will not first look to see if I have an active account. In other words, even though they have control over a product that I paid the creator for, Adobe will not allow me to get it. (I leased inDesign for the 2.5 years it took to get a book laid out and saved in hard copy files, but I can not afford to support Adobe every month; I am a retired professor, not a professional digital worker.)

Meanwhile, I have contacted the people I paid for it, but their very low level of sophistication about such things has them erroneously believing that since it is their content, and I bought a copy, I should be able to download it. They clearly do not understand the danger of doing business with Adobe.

This is the 5 point question I posed that Adobe ignores. If any of you know of any way to get past this stonewall, please let me know.

Case Number:  ADB-27837060-Q7L8

Issue:  Guidance with Product/Project

1. I do not have a current account with Adobe, so do not even look

2. My ONLY question is this: I PAID FOR a copy of a PDF. Morehouse School of Medicine, however, let you control their product.

3. I do not seem to be able to download the thing I paid for

4. Is there a way I can, or, if not, simply state plainly that you will not allow me to download it so I can present that to my Wellness doctor.

5. Thank you.

[kglad]

what pdf?

[williamd89979732]

It is the PDF of what is also available in hard copy. Prepared and sold by a Medical School.
Do you need to know the title?

Neither my Wellness M.D. nor her assistant are sophisticated enough to know that Adobe will not allow anyone to download anything unless they have paid Adobe money.

I tried to get Adobe to state plainly that they had that requirement so that I could present it to them so that they send PDFs to paid patients instead of believing that Adobe would allow such foolishness as permitting a paid customer to download what they bought.

All the Chat, and now just the virtual assistant, the AI does is look for a current account on MY part, so I can't even get to a human being any more.

Let me know if you need any more clarity.

[kglad]

if the publication is a secret you don't need to reveal it.  contact adobe support, maybe you can reveal more to them.  there are 3 ways to contact adobe; chat, phone and twitter:

chat:
use a browser that allows popups and cookies
and click here, https://helpx.adobe.com/contact.html?rghtup=autoOpen
in the chat field (lower right), type AGENT
be patient, it can take quite a while to reach a human.

phone:
https://helpx.adobe.com/contact/phone.html

twitter:
tweet @AdobeCare

p.s. if you're contacted by anyone (via email or private message), it's much more likely to be a scammer than an adobe representative. ie, double check for an employee badge if contacted in the forums and look for an adobe.com domain in the email address if you click reply to an email. then check again and be very suspicious. any other method of contacting (or offering to contact you) is almost certainly a scam, https://community.adobe.com/t5/using-the-community-discussions/staying-safe-in-the-adobe-support-com...

[williamd89979732]

Damn. It’s not a secret, I simply did not understand why your ONLY question was what the title was, since that had nothing to do with my question. I don’t mind telling you, especially since that seems to be your main concern. This is from the email:

Lifestyle Intervention

Optimal Health

More than a Cooking class!

The Optimal Health and Wellness Clinic focuses on:

Plant-based nutrition, stress management, sleep management and physical activity.

Lifestyle Intervention Handbook (Electronic Version)

I lost 55 pounds through participating in this before COVID. Would you like to know my medical conditions?

This is the advice I received after I paid for it:

Download your electronic copy click this link

<link removed-kglad>

We appreciate your generosity and support!

BUT WHEN I GO TO DOWNLOAD IT, ADOBE WILL NOT ALLOW ME TO DO SO BECAUSE I DO NOT HAVE A CURRENT ACCOUNT WITH THEM

THIS IS WHY I NEED ADOBE TO MAKE A CLEAR STATEMENT SO THAT THE OWNERS OF THE PDF UNDERSTAND THAT ADOBE WILL NOT PERMIT ME TO DOWNLOAD IT.

[kglad]

sending you a private message, but i think you should contact adobe support and have them make that book available to you.  that would be the best way to procede.

[williamd89979732]

Adobe Support can not be contacted UNLESS I am currently giving them money every month.

[kglad]

@williamd89979732 

is it possible that pdf is restricted to current adobe app subscribers?

[williamd89979732]

The Wellness M.D. at Morehouse School of Medicine had her assistant or secretary upload it as a PDF.

To download it, I pay the medical school. In return, the medical school sends me the URL and thinks I will be able to download it, but Adobe never told them that that arrangement would work.

The document is somewhere in the Adobe Cloud and there is no communication between Adobe and the people who own the document, so Adobe is acting on its prime directive: collect money every month.

[kglad]

did you try a few different browsers?

did you try using a mobile phone browser?

[williamd89979732]

I COULD VIEW IT, I COULD NOT DOWNLOAD IT, by which I mean I can not get my own electronic copy; I have to always go to Adobe Cloud. If you could actually download it, I guess it's because you have some special status that Adobe conferred upon you.

When I have it on screen and attempt to save, this is the filename of what it will save:
Lifestyle Intervention Workshop Handbook Fall 2020.pdf(Shared) - Adobe cloud storage.html
Of course, HTML is a webpage, not a PDF.
_______________________________________________

This is what I sent to the medical school when I saw I could view the file online, but was not able to download it:
From: William Dorsey
Sent: Thursday, January 26, 2023 1:09 PM
To: Rooke, Jennifer <@msm.edu>
Subject: Re: Week 3: Optimal Health Lifestyle Intervention Workshops

The link in this email that says you can download it only gives the right to view it. I can not store a copy on my computer.

I paid for the PDF, and can open it, but only from Adobe's Document Cloud. If I were paying them a monthly plan fee, then they would allow me to download the file.

If you have a copy of the PDF stored on your computer, you could send it to paid participants without dragging them through Adobe's plan to extract monthly fees from anyone who wants to be able to read it without having to go through their internet browser.


AND THIS IS WHAT I'M SENDING TO THE SECRETARY/ASSISTANT NOW:

I have not received a reply to the January 26 email below, so I am writing to you.

When I go to the URL in Firefox, I can look at the document, but not download it.

________________________________
From: Adobe Support Community Mailer
Sent: Tuesday, February 7, 2023 9:34 PM
To: whldorsey@hotmail.com
Subject: You have received a private message in the Adobe Support Community!

[Bernd Alheit]

"I paid for the PDF, and can open it, but only from Adobe's Document Cloud. "

What is the issue when you have saved the document there?

[kglad]

@Bernd Alheit 

the only issue is getting the op to understand that they have access to download the pdf and instruction them how to do so.  

again, this post was mistakenly moved (by @Jeffrey_A_Wright ) to the acrobat forum.  it's not an acrobat issue.  it's an op understanding how to use a share creative cloud file and should be in the download&install forum, or even better, the cc services forum.  (but i've been alerted we're not to alter expert and employee posts.)

[williamd89979732]

This is what I get. I am surprised how many responses

assume that Adobe is reasonable. In my experience, THIS is the 

stone wall.

[try67]

You keep insisting this is an Adobe issue, but you have not provided any evidence to demonstrate that.

You were given a link to an HTML page, not to a PDF file, right? So what do you see when you open that web-page? Post a screenshot, or better yet, share the actual link (if you're allowed to!).

[kglad]

@try67 

the link is to a pdf.  (the op makes a number of mistakes and one is the misinterpretation of the download when their browser categorizes the pdf as html.)

[williamd89979732]

Attached are the screenshot of the document cover AND the things saved after I selected Save.

Hopefully, you can see that what got downloaded were the necessities for viewing locally in a browser.

As for the proof, the Medical School saved it to the Adobe Cloud. The Medical School accepted my payment and gave me the URL to download the document — or so they thought:

https://acrobat.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn%3Aaaid%3Ascds%3AUS%3A1a5ef27d-2a29-4bc6-803d-8357ac09f2...

If there is something else you need to know, ask.

[Bernd Alheit]

Open the file in Acrobat Reader. Then you can save a copy on your device.

[williamd89979732]

I can not get to this message in the Community forum, so I am attempting to respond here.

I signed into Acrobat then chose Open on the only thing I could open, the HTML file (again, the entire problem is that I can not download the PDF). Unsurprisingly Acrobat did nothing with that file.

[Bernd Alheit]

Use the same Adobe Id in the browser and Acrobat Reader. Then you can open the shared file in Acrobat Reader. 

[kglad]

follow the instructions i suggested.

[try67]

Your description of the issue is not very clear. What exactly did you buy, and from where?

Adobe does not block the download of any PDF file. In fact, it has no control whatsoever over who downloads what file, unless that file is located on its servers. If you can't download the file from the link you were given the issue is most likely with how the file was uploaded and/or shared by the author.

And no, you don't need to pay Adobe to open PDF files, either. You can do it using the free Adobe Reader, or one of a myriad of other PDF applications out there. In fact, most browsers have a built-in PDF plugin now, so you could just open it in your browser directly.

[williamd89979732]

Elsewhere, among the first two, maybe three, posts, I fully explain who created it, that it is stored on an Adobe server and that is why I need them to provide me with an actual refusal so that I can get the people I paid for it to get it to me by other means, but, unless I am giving Adobe money, I can not get in touch with a human being. The people at the medical school were taken in by how Adobe made it sound like others could easily download it from the Adobe cloud. SOMEwhere, no doubt, the limitations on who can access the cloud are stated, but probably miles away from the claim of how easy it makes it for others to secure the document. The idea that ANYone who wanted to would HAVE TO BE PAYING ADOBE AT THE TIME is more than likely never explicitly stated. Or is well-hidden in legalese somewhere.

[kglad]

no adobe subscription is needed if they shared their file correctly.

https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/collaboration.html#:~:text=No.%20Anyone%20can%20view%20or%20comm....

the fact that i could download the file indicates that something local to your computer or network or browser is causing the problem.

have you tried changing those? eg different browsers?

[williamd89979732]

As you can see, when I hit Save, what is downloaded are the files for viewing HTML locally, not a PDF.

Are you saying that if I use Edge or Opera or Firefox instead of Chrome or Safari that the Adobe server would suddenly download the PDF instead. Hold on; let me go try Edge … OK. Same thing. I am attaching two screenshots, each named beginning with "Edge."