How do I go back to the old Acrobat?

[Matt27878727ufum]

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

How can I reinstall the last version??

[t1350]

I am not happy with it either.  If there is a need to 'improve' Acrobat then it would be through refinement of existing features, not by changing a user interface that works fine. Changing the interface is a cosmetic thing, it doesn't make the program more useful. At the least, make the interface more customizable. An example of a great refinement would be to have a key command to start the 'marquee zoom' rather than constantly having to go to a menu. "Z" would be a great option here. 

But, the most significant change that has completely blown up the work process I have to use is removal of the scroll bar when in 'view single/full page' mode. I have to check headers and footers from mulitple sources in 2000+ page documents and that scroll bar was the key to doing that successfully in a reasonable amount of time. I basically cannot check them now with paging through them individually which is super slow. I don't usually have the luxury of that much time to do it and it has had a huge impact on the work I produce daily. This really needs to be fixed. Others in my office do the same thing and we cannot be the only Acrobat users who use that scroll bar when in full/single page view mode. 

Thanks. 

Thankfully, I also found the menu command to revert back to the previous interface. But this really needs to be fixed if they plan to force us to use the new version at some point. 

[pittsburgh2015]

Dead on. The zoom tool is easy to find and use in the old Acrobat (that I just went back to), but there should be a keyboard/mouse shortcut that activates zoom, which will save a second or two every time you use the frequently used zoom. The old version of Acrobat Pro wasn't perfect, but it worked, and had a fairly straightfoward interface. The new version is a confusing mess. The old familar tools are hard as hell to find, and when you did find them, they would not dock.

[LucasBS]

Just allow the user to drag the buttons and toolbars to where they want instead of forcing buttons to some counterintuitive placement ! Why is that so hard for Adobe to understand !?

[m341820658wdg]

You can waste your time on cosmetic updates that everyone hates if you want, but please make sure you always ALWAYS keep the option to the interface everyone is used to working with and that works perfectly fine. 

[Abambo]

What is the interface everyone is working with? I love the new interface, but from time to time, I need to go back to the old one, because not all functionallity has been implemented yet. Be prepared to see the old interface to stagnate and the modern interface to evolve. 

[Darrell R]

I spent about 3-4 weeks trying very hard to 'like all the changes'.   I spent probably 2 hours repinning the things I used frequently on the left but I still found it hard to navigate, noticably sluggish and even glitchy when using things like text callout.   Much like the new Outlook it just doesn't feel improved for sure.   Regardless, I went back because it was seriously impacting my producivity.  And posting this because I didn't try it for an hour and give up.  I really tried to like it.   

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

Adobe has dubbed the new interface design "Spectrum 2" and it seems that it will be migrating to other Adobe software programs.

God help us!

Although I do like the cleaner icons, they are too small, too grey, and not distinguishable (what the F does that icon mean??? The lesson of GUI design in the 1990s is that icons don't work). 

The rest of the GUI design is disorganized for the many tasks I must do with Acrobat:

• Printing adjustments
• Printing preflight
• Accessibility review and testing
• Accessibility preflight
• Forms building
• Editorial commenting and markup
• Combining PDFs, adding/deleting selected pages
• Reviewing and signing legal documents

I waste a lot of time searching for the icon I need for the task. (Is that the icon? No. Is this the one? No. And what is THIS icon?) And I can't control which icons are docked, which ones I must continually expand and expand and expand again to get where I need to be.

I dred to imagine how Spectrum 2 will ruin InDesign and Photoshop. Gah!

[CPAservice]

Unlike the previous poster who willingly invested two hours, I invested 2 full minutes filled with colorful adjectives to search and figure out how to revert back to the old. Spectrum 2 ... sheesh more like Retum One. 

Dear Acrobat Melleniumal and Zgen - I apologize for my Xgeneration if we failed to impart you with one very important life lesson " if it Aint broke don't fix it" but listen to your GenX customers with no student debt, listen to our requests and tweek it when we ask.  Ooops sorry. Please. 

[Patrick33944015zflf]

You said EXACTLY what I have been thinking and doing. Bravo. Can't OCR straighten out the crooked document my scanner pulled from the paper tray without butchering the words? Why cant it do a document compare on a  big document without rebooting my computer? 

If you were running for office I would vote for you.

[pittsburgh2015]

Oh God - say it isn't so that they're going to do "upgrades" like this to Photoshop and InDesign. If so, they better have the "Disable New ---" option on those programs too.

[tjunyat]

When you do an update and disable features like being able to hide/move menus, and only allow us to "reset it" back to where YOU now have put it, that's not an "update" it's a pain! How long will we be able to disable the new interface before you enforce it on your users? Just give us the ability to hide/disable/remove toolbars we don't want and you can put them where ever you want, as long as we can put them back to where WE WANT!

[Nikki5C26]

Completely disagree that "all tools and features that are currently supported retain their familiar functionalities and workflows."  This is not true when working with pdf portfolios or any doc assembly. Hope it gets better soon as this is super important functionality for our firm.

[Fortepianist]

The new interface is absolutely horrible—that and the absense of visual scroll bars make using Adobe a more complicated and time-consuming ordeal. Thank you, @bevi Chagnon, for providing the tip on reverting to the old interface. The scroll bars are still the issue, but at least having the old interface again is helpful. Adobe, don't fix what ain't broken and bring back the scroll bars!!!

[Vicki24785653cjcg]

This is a pain when you work on this version and the previous versions. Cannot find anything!

[Giddy_precision5FC5]

Sorry Adobe but this update is a disaster - too time consuming to use without the quick functionality of the old system.  I hope you will continue to have users use the old version as our entire office has switched back due to sheer frustration.

[crehkopf]

This new version is probably the worst upgrade you have created.  I have been using your product for over 20 years.  The last version was difficult for users to navigate this version is confusing and was not needed.  Put the toolbar back on the top, move the tools back on the right and get rid of that anditional tool bar that just takes up space.  It is nice that you are giving out instruction on how to move back the the previous ideration of the product.  A warning! Yes a warning should have been included in the update to either not proceed with the update or only install any needed security updates.  If this is the direction Adobe is going with this product or it 's Pro version I will start looking for an alternative.

[Glenn35034922yoi7]

Agree!

[beeniebaby001]

yes, it made me wonder whoes idea of making this update and what happened to this person. A big mess! We are L to R users, bookmarks have to be on the LEFT! One more thing, comment texts are corrupted for some languages.

[Zerochaos360]

Adobe, like Msft and others is consistenly going backwards in terms of functionality, useability, productivity in their tool design.   Unbelieveable.   2007 was better.  

[35379294o9u4]

The update to is so bad, I've had to create an account just to tell you that the number of button clicks & increased mouse movement necessary to execute basic funciton has incrased by almost double, dramatically slowing down productivity.   Please add a method to revert to the old version in settings...!!!

[Paul300665717kim]

I agree. The design went from challenging to nearly impossible.

[Sandi354949778big]

Why mess around with something that is fine the way it was and people were used to?  

[Romeo5E30]

Its a terrible update, i gotta be honest

[Ken3486520953kb]

The "new interface" is mostly advertising for premium services. I've got Kofax Power PDF Advanced, but I have still kept my default file opener as Acrobat Reader, because it was more useful. Emphasis on "WAS." Never a better excuse to kiss Acrobat goodbye. Too bad. It was a great product, and a great strategy. I guess anybody's eligible to be the next Borland.

[Ken3486520953kb]

Sorry, I won't be reading any "detailed article" about a program I will no longer use. Adios.