Error when searching in a shared PDF in Adobe Acrobat

[rd-it-department]

Hi all,

I've got an annoying problem with Adobe Acrobat. When we open a PDF, and share that PDF with other users thrught the  'Share'-option on the top hand side in Acobat, we are not able to do an advanced search (Ctrl+Shift-F). We are able to add a search word, but when starting the search, we get an error stating that:

'A shared version of this file is already opened in Adobe Acrobat. Close the shared file and try again.'

Note: I have translated the error from our Dutch version, so the actual English version may be different. However, this error happens with all files that are shared through Adobe Acrobat, and with every user either sharing a PDF or have received an invitation to view a shared file. Every option has been checked and unchecked, without any avsil. 

The error is only specific to Adobe Acrobat version 2025.001.20474 64-bit. On another - older - version 2023.008.20421 64 bit, that hasn't been updated to the latest version, the error isn't present.

Does anyone have any idea what this error could be, and how to resolve it? And my second question: is there a way to install an older version of Adobe Acrobat when we have Adobe Creative Cloud?

Thank you so much.

Best regards,

Mark 

[Tariq Ahmad Dar]

Hi @rd-it-department,

Thanks for bringing this up. When working with shared PDFs (like those opened from Adobe Document Cloud or as part of a shared review), some features — including Advanced Search (Ctrl+Shift+F) — may not function as expected. This is because the file is opened in a collaboration mode, which can limit certain local operations like Editing, full-text indexing, etc.

To work around this, try:

• Downloading the PDF to your desktop via File > Save As

• Then reopen it in Acrobat and use Ctrl+Shift+F to run the advanced search

Also, I am checking internally to get a confirmation from the product team on this. 

Let us know if that helps.

~Tariq

[rd-it-department]

Hi Tariq,

Thank you so much for your reply. When saving the PDF as another file, it is a different document, thus no longer shared with other users.

The whole idea is that the file is shared with others, while one person can start a search via Ctrl+Shift+F in order to find certain parts of text that need redacting or needs a comment. When you do a Save As, the new version in which the search does work, isn't shared.  Even sharing the new file again with others results in the same 'File in use' error. 

As said before, the problem doesn't exist in earlier versions of Adobe Acrobat, so it's something that has changed in newer versions. Somewhere during the development something has changed.

So, hopefully a bug fix will appear soon, or the possibility to download a previous version of Adobe Acrobat.

Best regards,

Mark