Comment author name automatically updates after editing

[Justin35482912ecc9]

I work as a writer and collaborate with various stakeholders on large documents which require copy review. Oftentimes, I need to edit copy in an existing comment in Acrobat. 

About a month ago, Adobe Acrobat began automatically changing the author name to my name when editing the copy in someone else's comment. I do not want this to happen. Now, I have to manually go into the properties and change the author's name back to the original person. It's really annoying. 

Has anyone else experienced this issue? Is there a way to turn off this auto-update author name in the Acrobat comments? Thanks.

[janelle_5583]

I'm an editor and I'm having the exact same frustration, but haven't found a solution yet. (Cleaning up proofreading comments means I need to edit author/proofreader comments to get them in the right format for our compositor, but I also need the comment to still be under the original commenter's name so I can tell where it came from.) The best strategy I've come up with is if I know I'm going to be editing a lot of the same person's comments, I will temporarily change my name to their name by changing it in the properties and checking "make properties default." Then when I edit their comments, the name stays the same. This backfires, however, if I need to leave an additional comment under my own name, or if I'm editing multiple people's comments at the same time. So I still end up switching my name/comment names really often. I'm hoping someone else will have a better/more permanent solution.

[AmyLynMac]

Another editor here, having this same problem. Any solution offered by Adobe yet?

[Justin35482912ecc9]

We had a meeting with an Adobe Enterprise Support rep about this a few months ago. They told us that this function was working as intended and that they did this on purpose because if a comment is edited, it should not longer be attributed to the original author.

Adobe was not empathetic to our workflow/process—the rep seemed incredulous that we would even want to keep the original author's name intact. We've adapted since then, but wish that it functioned as before (and that more obvious bugs had been fixed instead).

[AmyLynMac]

OK thanks for the heads-up. I understand why they don't understand, but would be nice if they acknowledged that some users do prefer this option -- whether or not they understand how we work, it remains the case that the update is cumbersome for some. Oh well. Appreciate you doing the legwork. Best of luck.

[JR Boulay · Accepted solution]

Try to enable this option in Preferences, then use "Answer" in the comments.

[janelle_5583]

I don't think this addresses the issue. (I have had this feature enabled already for years.) The issue isn't leaving additional nested comments, but rather the ability to edit someone else's comment directly without the attribution automatically changing to my name. 

For example, take this scenario: An author of a book crosses out the word "cold" in their book's proofs and replaces it with "frezing"; I am their project editor, and I can obviously tell that they meant "freezing" and made a typo. I need to correct it before sending the document to the compositor, who will manually enter the change in InDesign. The compositor requires the Acrobat comment to be precisely what should be entered in the book, without additional nested comments or debate. Therefore, I must edit the author's comment. However, authors are charged for making certain changes to their proofs. So the comment must be under the author's name so that we can accurately account for what to charge them for the project. 

This is why I need the ability to prevent the commenter's name from changing when editing a comment, not the ability to add additional nested comments. I'm sure this is just one scenario of many that illustrates this.

[waylandbruns]

This issue seems to be related to a recent update in Adobe Acrobat that automatically assigns the current user's name to edited comments. Unfortunately, there’s no built-in setting to disable this behavior directly. However, you can try the following workarounds:

1. Use the "Reply" Feature Instead of Editing – Instead of modifying an existing comment, try adding a reply to maintain the original author's name while still contributing your input.
2. Manually Change the Author Name – After editing, right-click the comment, select "Properties," and change the name back to the original author (though this is tedious).
3. Check for Updates or Roll Back Acrobat – Go to Help > Check for Updates to see if Adobe has addressed the issue. If not, consider rolling back to an earlier version that didn’t have this problem.
4. Modify Acrobat's Registry Settings (Advanced Users) – Some users have reported success in preventing auto-name changes by tweaking registry settings. Be sure to back up your system before making changes.
5. Report the Issue to Adobe – If this is a bug, submitting feedback to user instructions may prompt a fix in a future update.

If anyone else has found a direct solution, feel free to share! Hopefully, Adobe addresses this soon.

[Wayland Bruns]

Hi,

Here are several proven steps that can resolve the issue where edited comments revert to a different author name:

1. Go to Edit → Preferences → Commenting, and uncheck “Always use Log‑in Name for Author name”.

2. Then right-click an existing comment, choose Properties → General, update the “Author” field to your preferred name, and click “Make Properties Default”.

3. To ensure the change persists, consider signing out of your Adobe account before adding comments—some users report this step as effective.

If none of the above work after an update, it is likely an Acrobat bug. It may be necessary to report this to Adobe support and await a fix in a future release.

Hope this helps!