How to make Page Thumbnails open by default?

Version 2025 Acrobat:
a) Open your PDF file and display the pages side panel;
b) Right click in a blank area of the pages side panel;
c) Select "Embed All Page Thumbnails";
d) Save your PDF file.
e) Verify – close and reopen your file. Pages panel should now display upon opening.

Agree --- this is a very annoying to have to toggle through THREE Menus to simply sho Thumbnails... I liked the Old Acrobat better.

Please FIX --- thanks

Open a PDF, Click F4 to open the thumbnail panel. Right click on the skinny panel to the left and click ‘pin thumbnails’.

Go to ‘edit’ > ‘preferences’ > check ‘restore last view’. Save.

What is the "LHP"?? Loads of us are already confused, frustrated and don't want to be further confused by a strange acronym which isn't widely recognised. Please just write in an accessible way! I'm googling what this LHP thing is and it's really annoying

This works but "LHP" was SUPER unclear to me. I tried so many things before seeing the comment here that explains it. Next time, just say "left hand panel" or include an image. 

I right-clicked on the "Pages" icon at the far left and then was able to select "Pin Page Thumbnails." Hope this helps.

i had the same issue & this worked.. tnx

While I wish the Acrobat DC plugin (AddIn) for Word let you set a preference for this prior to creating the PDF, you should be able to set the PDF to open with Pages and document view once it's created.

1. Open the PDF
2. Choose "File"
3. Choose "Properties"
4. Choose the "Initial View" tab
5. Change the "Navigation tag" setting to "Pages Panel and Page"
6. OK that Document Properties setting change and then save the PDF.

From that point the PDF should auto-open with Pages panel showing

[unless I misunderstand what you are asking]

None of this advice works for Acrobat Pro DC. The option to pin the thumbnails by Ctrl+RightClick the thumbnails icon opens a menu that does not contain that option although I do see that others do have the option in other versions. See below. Even if it worked, the route to get there is quite fantastically obscure. If anybody does find a solution I would love to hear.

Hi All,

Acrobat & Reader January updates for DC Continuous (Build # 2015.023.20053), DC Classic (Build # 2015.006.30279) and 11.0.19 are now live.

In this Update we support keeping any Navigation pane pinned, i.e.  to open by default for all the documents in the LHP.

This is how you can try this out:

1) Launch any PDF and Expand the Panel that you want the acrobat to open by default for every document(For Ex. Page Thumbnails)

2) Right click on the LHP Navigation strip , Select the option from the context menu "Pin Page thumbnails" .

3) now try out by launching any other pdf -> You will observe that the Page thumbnails panel would appear expanded by default on launch(If document does not have any other document specific preference )

Refer here for more info on this What's new in Adobe Acrobat DC -> "Retain the last LHP state across Acrobat launches"

Let me know for any other Ask in this.

Thanks

Ayush Jain

Acrobat Team

The BEST ANSWER I have seen so far is at how can I keep tool pane and thumbnails open as a default?‌ . 

That response advises using

(1)    F4 to get the "Page Thumbnails Pane" open or closed.  After you have pressed F4 to open the Page Thumbnails Pane,

(2)    ALSO click EDIT, PREFERENCES, DOCUMENTS and CHECK the box beside "Restore last view settings when reopening documents".  Click OK / Apply to save the check box change.

(3)    Then be sure you SAVE the current file you have F4'ed your preferred view.

In my case, I ALWAYS need Page Thumbnails open for the files I update.  I hope this helps you as much as it did me.