ESC key and acrobat comments

[Martin24970897ydqd]

If I write a comment and press the ESC key, acrobat closes the comment window without saving the comment. Do anybody know, how I could change the behavior of acrobat?

[JR Boulay]

ESC often means "Cancel", you should use TAB or ENTER instead.

[try67]

And just to clarify, you can't change how it works.

[Martin24970897ydqd]

If you hit TAB you will get a tabulator-code in the text of the comment. If you hit ENTER you will get a new line in the text.

[Amber5FA1]

ESC used to save the text of the comment before closing the window. This week, ESC key changed function and now only closes the comment.
TAB adds a tab to the comment. This is not the desired function.

ENTER adds a line break to the comment. This is not the desired function.

Restoration of previous ESC function is desired.

[Paul25099550sbnh]

The "correct answer" is not actually an answer but a confirmation of the problem, which is that many people learned to save their comments and go on to other tasks by hitting ESC.  The new interface makes sense, i.e., if I don't want to discard my comment then I can press ESC.  However, it would be great to have some other key to press to confirm (post) the comment and continue.  It seem the best practice, for now, is to click "post" with the mouse, or simply click anywhere in the document as that has the same effect as posting.

[creubenc]

Clicking anywhere in the document adds a dot when using the drawing tool, so clicking anywhere is not ideal either

[CVHManchester]

But why did (does) Adobe change something that has been working this way for ?decades? Even after annoyingly discarding many needed comments, my muscle memory still does this automatically.

Has Adobe employed some bored teenagers as programmers who like playing for the hell of it?  There is a real world out there for whom stability is far more important than novelty.

The problem Adobe has created is still there. Why?

[Andrea273190162apd]

Why would one want to discard his/her own comment? The action of discarding the own comment requires no shortcut like ESC because no one frequently would use it.

Please give us the old behavior where we can exit the comment without losing the text by just pressing one key. I know I can press ALT+ENTER. It works, but (1) these are two keys to type, (2) inadvertently I pressed too often ESC and lost my comments! So I had to retype them.

[Winfried Reng]

After more than a year and many hundreds of comments with ALT+ENTER I do not want to switch back again. I am sure that Adobe will not do this. Over time we will learn to use new keys.

[JR Boulay]

You're right, ENTER should not act as RETURN.

[Galil TW LTD - U3 · Accepted solution]

They changed it so now you need to press ALT + ENTER

[Winfried Reng]

Thank you very much! I was confused, as I also have a new laptop and tried to find out whether there is an option which I have to use to change this behaviour. Good that I found your post here!

[Joel25133868gmw7]

Thanks for the answers, everyone, but Alt + Enter doesn't seem to fully replace Esc.

Esc fully closed the pop-up box including minimizing it, but Alt + Enter only closes the text entry part of the pop-up box without minimizing it. Is there any keystroke that will fully close and minimize the pop-up box?

[Paul25099550sbnh]

I am likewise appreciating these answers and discussions.  My main problem now, even though I know to press alt-enter, is that I've been pretting ESC for years to save comments.  I find myself frustratingly using the old mechanism from time to time, so I need to enter the comment twice.  I suppose I will eventually learn through negative reinforcement, but find myself wishing that there was a way to *disable* the ESC to discard mechanism.

[Neonvadász]

I have the same problem.

Esc was used to confirm the comment AND close the popup.

Esc is now used to cancel the comment AND close the popup.

Alt+enter is used to confirm the comment, BUT there's no key to press to close the popup!

[MeenakshiNegi]

Hi All,

Thank you for being so patient. 

The behavior of Esc would be to discard any draft content typed in the comment box. To post the comment, either the Post button be clicked, or Alt+Enter be pressed. Further, a mouse click on the document will also post the comment. So, apart from the Esc key, all other ways to post the comment are retained.

Thanks,

Meenakshi

[Ann25411406q2o3]

This is absolutely counter-productive and time inefficient if you work all day with correcting manuscripts, which sadly has to be done through Acrobat. People are on the edge about the loss of a decades-now functionality and you can at least offer the OPTION through the preferences to save our time, instead of just charging monthly heavily costed plans. 

[Ann25411406q2o3]

Please vote as CRITICAL the request that has already been opened here:

https://acrobat.uservoice.com/forums/590923-acrobat-for-windows-and-mac/suggestions/45389335-hitting...

[Ann25411406q2o3]

I have finally cracked up a solution. First of all uninstall Acrobat from Creative Cloud. Then head to this link from Adobe:

https://helpx.adobe.com/download-install/kb/acrobat-2020-downloads.html

and download the 2020 version. Install this one and sign in with your subscription credentials! Et voila! The old beloved ESC function and a speedy pdf editor is back in the game! I hope this helps everyone!