Participant

Answered

How do I go back to the old Acrobat?

152 replies
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The update is terrible. Comment tools are complicated and/or missing. Nothing is where it was

How can I reinstall the last version??

Modern Acrobat

Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.comCorrect answer

Legend

To revert to the old interface:

On Macs, go to the View menu and select Disable New Acrobat.
On Windows, to the hamburger menu in the upper left corner (where the old File menu used to be) and select Disable New Acrobat, it's about 2/3 down the menu.

|    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |

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kristea66778158

Participant

Thank you so much - the updated version seems to be for persons who just want to play

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Shiobhain@Savills

Participant

no hamburfer

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justlearn

Community Expert

@Shiobhain@Savills Sorry, I don’t quite understand your comment? Do you have a question with regrds to Acrobat?

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meshep

Participating Frequently

Hey! I think "No hamburfer" was a typo for "no hamburger." He's most likely talking about Adobe Acrobat's new layout. In the new version, the classic File / Edit / View menu bar is gone. It's replaced by a "hamburger" button in the top-left corner, which is just three stacked lines that open the menu. So "no hamburger" basically means he'd rather not use the new layout and wants to keep the classic one.

I agree with him. The new layout looks cleaner, but it's harder to use:

More clicks for the same tasks. Tools that used to sit in a toolbar one click away are now grouped under menus like Edit, Convert, and Sign. That means extra clicks to reach the tool you need, and Adobe's own forums are full of complaints about it.
Tools are harder to find. Users report that common functions were hidden, moved, or removed. Some couldn't find basics like setting zoom to a specific level or jumping to the first or last page. A PDF trainer at PubCom wrote that some tools are buried deep in panels and that the new version is missing several important functions.
Less flexible workspace. In the classic layout, panels can be resized and collapsed. In the new one, the panels switched sides and can't be resized, so they take up a lot of screen space.
It throws off experienced users. Longtime users say it broke the habits that made them fast and that the learning curve is steep. People have had trouble even with simple things like printing.
Lots of people feel this way. The post explaining how to switch back to the classic layout has over 160,000 views and 100+ replies. Feedback posts on Adobe's site have titles like"New interface is terrible."

To be fair, Adobe says the redesign was meant to reduce clutter and group tools so they're easier to find. Simpler on the screen doesn't mean simpler to use, though. When the tools you need every day are hidden behind menus, the job takes longer.

If you're on the new layout and want to switch back, click the hamburger menu (☰) in the top-left and select Disable New Acrobat. Then restart Acrobat. On a Mac, it's under View > Disable New Acrobat. Adobe may remove this option in a future update, so it's worth switching while it's still there.
[community.adobe.com], [pubcom.com], [acrobat.us...rvoice.com], [acrobat.us...rvoice.com]

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meshep

Participating Frequently

@AdobeAcrobat Stop breaking things that are working. The new Adobe sucks. I will always disable it.

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Amyg4969

Participating Frequently

There is no option for disable this new version. This is affecting my performance at work and I do not know why they had to change this!! I went into apps on my windows and it gives the option to install the newer version. Absolutely NOT!!

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Amyg4969

Participating Frequently

There is no option to disable new acrobat.

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Edwin35651566hmig

Participant

GRACIAS!! no se porque lo hacen peor cada año, mas pesado mas dificil de usar

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krisztina_6885

Participant

This is a f.. lie, it does give you the old interface but the software is the same!!! I WANT THE OLD SOFWARE BACK, so to be able to shring document sizes, which you took away with the new sofware version, and made it a payable service to force the Adobe Acrobat Pro. You are just the worst company ever!!!

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Mark_Va_1

Participant

One more vote in the "what the hell" column for the hideous update... I felt like they were purposefully trying to make me unproductive...

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Brenda244271561tzn

Participant

Seriously Adobe. This is a horrible feature to give us. My brain does not work that way and is hard on my eyes. You should at least give us the option in the new version on what side of the page we want our features. I will NEVER get use to this and now I will have a headache everyday because of you. FYI. You have no way of reveriting back when using the on-line version/account. My rating for this update is -1,000,000,000,000 stars.

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NudeCruzer

Inspiring

I don't see improvments. They just wanted to move all the tools to make the user's lives miserable. Are they adding tools? no, they are just moving everything to make the software less intuitive. At least they allow you to have more than one window. But, I need to change back for all the other reasons.

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frank_5972

Participant

Agree, this "update" (and the apparent trend of software developers merely updating user interfaces and hiding existing functionality to charge more for a new-content-free "update") is complete garbage.

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