Hide "All tools" pane?

[James30818644amb9]

Same problem as everyone else under the sun: I cannot figure out how to permanently hide the "All Tools" menu on Acrobat Pro 2023.003.20215.

Preferences > Documents > Open Settings > Remember Current State ... is just missing for me (and apparently for others, too.) And, depressingly, the registry keys bRHPSticky and bExpandRHPinViewer don't seem to affect Acrobat Pro.

Having to close and re-close the "All Tools" menu every single time I open a new PDF, all day every day, is exhausting and I hate it. Does anyone know a fix for this (aside from switching away from Adobe)?

[James30818644amb9]

Found a workaround

1. Click Menu > (5th category) Disable New Acrobat
2. Restart Acrobat
3. Click View > Show/Hide > Tools Pane
   • or press Shift+F4

That's it!

You DON'T even need to fiddle with the registry — I deleted bExpandRHPinViewer and bRHPSticky from HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\DC\AVGeneral and restarted the program and the toolbar still stayed closed!

[James30818644amb9]

(I can't edit my posts, dropping references in this comment)

• The question is no-thanks-to this Adobe Knowledgebase article that describes a (broken) solution: https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/disable-right-hand-pane-in-acrobat-reader.html
• The anwer is h/t this other community post by Adobe Employee "AkanchhaS" who provided the workaround: https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-reader-discussions/hide-all-tools-pane-permenatly-2023/m-p/13...

However, this workaround is very obviously not the true solution. I'm still extremely interested to see what the true solution is.

[John Heimark]

I had 3 users complaining about the tools panel being open by default. So happy to have found this fix!

[acme-scottp]

Has a community expert posted yet that we should all suggest it in the correct place and reminded us all that Adobe doens't take feedback from it's own community forum (like that's somehow a good thing)?

Jokes aside, thank you so much for finding this though, PDFs open on my secound monitor and the tool pane was always pushing the PDF to the side so I had to close it EVERY SINGLE TIME I opened a PDF just to see the document. 

[Formerly30818644amb9]

Has a community expert posted yet that we should all suggest it in the correct place

To answer this literally, it has indeed already been suggested many times at the “correct” place.

Personally, I suspect that this is not a bug, but rather an (anti-user) feature.

It’s conceivable that Adobe has intentionally programmed the “Remember Current State” option (which is supposed to allow the tools pane to stay closed) to disappear if your license lapses, in order to force the drawer of “tools” that can’t be used to stay open as an annoying advertisement — a reminder to renew (or to tell your employer to renew) the license. 💵

[AbbyKMott]

Thank you so much! I was really struggling with this.

[Joseph_Bedsole]

Abby, you can simply do this with the New Reader.  Just go to Menu > Preferences > Documents > (5th checkbox) "Remember last state of All tools pane when opening documents" > Check on > Click OK at the bottom of the window.

[Ellen31139152t1jj]

It worked for me. Thank you so much. That all tools pane drove me almost crazy..

[Kienan31669710ls7m]

Thank you, this is just what I needed!

[勁維5E84]

Thank you so much. I have been searching for solutions on the internet for a long time. This is probably the only one that works.

[Fabriccio32448169i2u7]

Thanks James, it worked fine!

[Glenn217718673z5t]

That works! I do not understand why Adobe thinks they know what we want, and then make it ridiculous to find the solution!

[Robin329639201gpl]

Thank you SO much!  ALWAYS having to close that tool bar on the left that I never use was driving me insane.  You are the best! 

[Leon33176232us3i]

This worked for me. I've even opened and closed the Reader twice ... and it still worked!!!

Version 2023.006.20360.

Thank you, thank, you, thank you.

[gravitycoach]

Thank you!! Been poking around preferences for days...

[Danyang336118525vwc]

worked for me too! THANK YOU! you saved my day!

and middle finger to the greedy Acrobat that updated sneakingly updated to a newer version that doesn't allow people to automatically hide the Tool Pane so that they can rip off more people

[Alex33852791qvql]

OMG. It worked!! Thank you!!! For ages I tried to get rid of this stupid All Tools and finaly found this solution which works.

[astridd57718731]

Thanks a lot, that works, however, the tool pane on the right reappears every time, even if I unchecked Show/hide. Less annoying than the ALL TOOLS on the left, but would love to be able to hide them permanently.

[astridd57718731]

Managed to keep it close with "Restore last view settings when reopening documents" in Edit> Preferences > Documents

[Formerly30818644amb9]

As noted in the OP, not everyone has that option.

[Alberto34144778pkk5]

Thanks James, worked for me. Version 2023.006.20380. Apparently Adobe is launching new versions with the same bug.  Sad

Thank you!

[Patrik32756243tq5b]

Thanks so much! This solution never comes up.

[Jeselle34242799297i]

How do you do that on Mac?

[EZ0D45]

Only solution that works, thanks, was about to leave adobe!!!