Participating Frequently

Question

Cannot drag and drop pages between documents

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
January 6, 2023
6 replies
46922 views

Today was the big day - I finally updated Acrobat Pro from my 2017 perpetual license to the current subscription model. Unfortunately, the one function I use most often doesn't appear to work.

For some reason, Acrobat will not allow me to drag and drop pages from one open pdf to another. This function is literally 90% of what I use Acrobat for. I've done a community search and tried the fixes related to protected mode but they haven't worked. Has anyone found a reliable fix for this issue?

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deborah_0836

Participant

Sliding selected page from one document to another still works BUT the real issue now is they took away the feature of putting your document in "organize" they grabbing it and dragging to a folder. Now you have to do "extract" or " save to PDF". So many more steps and clicking.

My version still allows it but my new hires can't and I get exhausted watching her have to do all the extra steps.

AnandSri

Legend

Hello @deborah_0836

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

The current behavior is as designed, and if you want to share your feedback/observations about the tool or the workflow, you can use the Wish form to file a feature request directly with the product team.

Thanks,

Anand Sri.

S

Sachin_Soni

Adobe Employee

Hi @MWV desk jockey

Acrobat allows for drag and drop of pages from one open PDF to another wherein we can have organize pages tool (Edit -> Organize pages) opened for both the PDFs, drag the page to be moved to the tab corresponding to the document where it needs to be moved and subsequently drop the page in the destination document. It would help if you can share a video recording of the issue

Also, you mentioned that you may need to use the workaround of opening multiple windows. Did you try that and did it help. If not, you can go to Preferences -> General and deselect the preference "Open documents as new tabs in the same window" to try that

Thanks & Regards

Sachin Soni

M

meh34091012jt3u

Participant

We use Acorobat Pro at work, just upgraded to version 2023.006.02380 - we might have gone from 32bit to 64bit, not exactly sure on that one. Anyway, we immediately started experincing this behavior (annecdotally only on pdfs that had been digitally signed). Our use case is to print the first page (digitally signed) to pdf and then drag all other pages into the printed pdf. Only woraround found so far (to get drag/drop working again) was to print the first page that's dig sig as usual, but then select the thumbnails we'd usually drag/drop, right click and select Extract instead, save to a file. Then close all pdfs, open up the 2 new ones and drag/drop works again.

So, prior use case behavior was:

1. Print dig sig'd page of pdf (to "flatten" it), save to new file.

2. Select all other pages of dig sig file and drag/drop them into new file, save and done.

New use case behavior with workaround:

1. Pring dig sig page to pdf, save to new file.

2. Select all other pages, right click and Extract them, save to other new file.

3. Close Acrobat completely.

4. Open Acrobat and open up two new files.

5. Successfully drag/drop all thumbnails into other new file and save.

Not an acceptable workaround, just documenting in case it helps troubleshoot. Added note, when we go to drag/drop multiple selected thumbnails, it deselects all other thumbnails but the one you clicked on to drag/drop.

We're not able to test the disable Enhanced Security suggestion as it's greyed out by group policy.

D

Dacashmachine

Participant

TLDR Make sure the page you are dragging is at a zoom of fit height to page. it will let you drag it over.

OK im not sure if you are still having this issue, but i ran across it today and was able to fix the issue. So i noticed when i was trying to drag it there was a little box highlighting the visible area on the thumbnail. So when i clicked and draged on thumbnail all it did was move the little box around showing what area was previewing and didnt let me drag the thumb. SO i was like maybe the view needs to be fit to page so it doesnt do that little thing where it added a box on the thumbnail. Sure enough changing the zoom to Fit Height on the page you are trying to drag over, fixes the issue.

J

Jill294118879j2d

Participant

Unfortunately this doesn't fix the issue for me. I had been able to drag/drop from one open pdf to another until this latest release (23.003.20201.0). I've tried changing to Fit Height and still unable to drag/drop. I rely heavily on this function so really looking for a fix asap!

Thanks for any help -

R

Robert259051711lg3

Participant

Jill, I disabled "new acrobat experience" and it changed the screen view of the program and I am now able to move between open files. I hope I explained this weel enough as I was having the same problem you were.

Bernd Alheit

Community Expert

Try this:

In the preferences of Acrobat disable the protection mode.

M

MWV desk jockeyAuthor

Participating Frequently

Tried that, since it was recommended in other threads. Hasn't helped. Here's a screenshot of my settings:

M

MWV desk jockeyAuthor

Participating Frequently

Hi @MWV desk jockey

Hope you are doing well and am sorry for the trouble.

I have tried to reproduce the issue on my end using Adobe Acrobat DC 22.3.20282 on Win 11 and its working fine.

Make sure you have the recent version 22.3.20282 installed. Go to Help > Check for updates and reboot the computer once. You may also download the patch manually from the link https://www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/acrobatetk/tools/ReleaseNotesDC/index.html

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

You may also try to create a new test user profile with full admin rights in Win or enable the root account in MAC and try using the application there and check.

Let us know how it goes.

Regards

Amal

Amal,

I have completed the steps in your reply above with no success. I can drag and drop from Acrobat to the desktop to extract the page as a new pdf. If I open pdfs in separate windows, I can drag and drop pages between them. But I still cannont drag and drop pages between pdfs in different tabs within the same acrobat window. I suppose I'll need to use the workaround of opening multiple windows for the time being. Thanks for your help, and if you do find a solution please update this thread in the future.

gary_sc

Community Expert

Hi, @MWV desk jockey

That "should" work just fine. Have you tried it with only the one PDF, or have you tried it with others? Is there a chance the PDF that you're not able to insert into might be locked or something?

Have you tried to "INSERT" the page into the document other than dragging it into the receiving PDF?

Can you please elaborate on the exact procedure you're using?

Lastly, for the record, what is your OS, and what release?

Thanks

M

MWV desk jockeyAuthor

Participating Frequently

Hi Gary,

Thanks for the quick follow up! I'm running Windows 11, which is up to date according to system update info. Acrobat Pro was just downloaded and installed from the Adobe website today, so I assume it's the most current version.

I have tried opening multiple pdf files to see if the issue is just with files created in this new version of Acrobat, but the problem exists with all pdfs I've tried. Even the ones I created yesterday in Acrobat 2017 which have pages that were dragged/dropped into a single file.

I can insert from file, but there are many times I want to grab only specific pages from one document and drag them into another. The process of extracting the pages I want from one document then inserting that file and reorganizing in the new document is a giant leap backward in efficiency/productivity.

Thank you!

gary_sc

Community Expert

OK, I just tried this, and it worked as well as anyone could expect. I'm working on a Mac with the most recent OS and most recent Acrobat Pro.

I did it two different ways, one way was with the Pages thumbnails showing in the left Panel and also with Orgnanize Pages. Either way, I need to be seeing page thumbnails. I did it both with the two documents as tabs and as the two documents on two different windows. Either way, I had to be viewing the pages as page thumbnails.

It was as simple as grabbing the page thumbnail with my mouse and moving/dragging it to the new location in the other document, place it between the two pages I wanted to place it and letting go. When I had the two documents as tabs, I had to move the page up to the tab of the receiving document until that document came into view (in the Organize Pages view) and placing the single page where I wanted it.

So, please explain what you are doing any differently (if at all) and it's not working for you.

Something is preventing this for you and I'm not all that sure what it might be right now. But suffice it to say, this ability has NOT be removed in Acrobat. We just need to figure out what might be causing that.

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