how to stop Widows 11 from combining PDF icons on its taskbar?

[L23370334ofdk]

Does anyone know how to make the Win 11 taskbar show a separte icon for each PDF that's open?

By default, Windows 11 likes to combine together all open files by program.  Looking in the Windows community forums, I fould that we were given the option to turn off that "feature" last year (I'm running build 22621.2861, ver 22H).  So I set the tasbar to Never combine, and it stopped combining my Excel, Word, etc files. Each now shows separately on the taskbar.

However, my PDF's are still being combined into a single icon. I know I can click on the icon then select which PDF to work on, but my preference is to have a separate icon on the taskbar for each PDF I have open.  Since Windows 11 does this for other for other programs now, I'm guessing PDFs are being combined due to some Adobe setting. Does anyone know if that can be changed so my Win 11 taskbar shows a separate icon for each PDF I have open? 

Thanks!

Thx

[try67]

This is a general setting of Windows, not related to Acrobat. To change it follow these steps:

1. Open the Settings app.
2. Navigate to Personalization > Taskbar.
3. Scroll to the bottom and click on Taskbar behaviors.
4. Under Taskbar behaviors, look for the setting that reads "Combine taskbar buttons and hide labels" In the dropdown menu, select "Never".

[L23370334ofdk]

I tried to make it clear in my post that I had already done that. It
worked, except for PDFs, so I'm guessing that Adobe may have decided to
override Windows (why, don't know, but then there are tons of things in
Adobe DC after they redesigned it I don't understand too - such as its mini
floating window that no one can seem to figure out how to get rid of). So
now I'm trying to figure out how to get PDF's to also open separate icons
on the Win 11 taskbar.

Thanks.

[meagans]

It seems like with the new update for Acrobat, by default all files open as tabs in a single Acrobat window, which is why Windows 11 is only showing 1 icon in the taskbar. I am unable to find where to change the default so PDFs all open in individual windows. The files can manually be dragged apart, but there's got to be a setting to just have them open in new windows by default. (If you manually separate the PDF tabs into separate windows, each PDF shows up in the task bar as a unique file.)

Thanks.

[L23370334ofdk]

Thanks for your reply. If you're right, which I'm guessing you are,
its another oddity with AD. I used to be pretty good with Adobe when it was
Acrobat Pro. but confess I've struggled ever since they transformed it into
Adobe DC. Now it has way way too many settings that I have to figure out.
Not good for a casual user.

I'm hoping someone will find out a secret menu option that will get Adobe
to follow Windows' settings so I can get back my cluttered taskbar. Took
Microsoft 3 years to figure out that a lot of people find that useful and
restored the "Never combine" option.

[meagans]

I found this article on the Adobe community site. You need to select Disable New Acrobat from the upper left menu. Once that's disabled, you then have the option to uncheck the "Open documents as new tabs in the same window."

For me, once I disabled New Acrobat, my settings went back to opening everything in a new window, thus allowing Windows 11 to display each file as an individual file selectable from the task bar.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-discussions/how-to-open-pdf-s-in-separate-windows-2016-locked...

[L23370334ofdk]

Thanks. i found that article too and saw the moderator's warning that it was old. I tried it anyway, but it didn't work for me. Then I found a separate article (I don't have the link) which said to go to  Edit/Preferences/General and uncheck the box "Open documents a new tabs in th same window".  Once I did that, it worked. But now if I drag a PDF from one monitor to another, Win11 shows two icons in the new monitor's taskbar (I find that really odd, but I'm new to Win 11, ).  

[jeremiah_605]

@L23370334ofdk were you able to figure out this issue?  On my main monitor, Adobe shows one label with multiple documents open in separate tabs in Adobe.  When I move Adobe to a second monitor, Adobe shows two labels in the taskbar with one document open, and shows multiple labels with multiple documents open in separate tabs in Adobe.  I only want to see one label when I have my documents on separate tabs in Adobe.  Seems like it is working fine on the primary monitor but not the second.  Settings are the same for both monitors.

[L23370334ofdk]

Sorry, but nope - it's yet anther bug. Adobe blames Microsoft, Microsoft blames Adobe. Truth is neither of them has any clue what's going on and probably has not spent any time trying to fix it. But to be fair to Adobe, Windows 11 is a total dumpster fire of a operating system, much much worse than 8, or even Windows Millenium edition was.  

[Tim28077476aihf]

This behavior varies between primary and secondary monitors: On what windows 11 calls the main monitor, Acrobat entries are combined (this is my preferred behavior for tabbed PDFs as they are all in one window). On additional monitors, whether 1 or 4 more, the taskbar includes separate entries for each PDF open as well as one entry for the program itself (whose name is preceeded by the name of the current tab).
For example: I open 1.PDF, 2.PDF & then 3.PDF in three tabs on an acrobat window on my main monitor.
I see one taskbar entry listing 3.PDF - Adobe Acrobat Standard (64-bit) on my main monitor. Hoverover shows 3 screenshots of each PDF.
I move that to another monitor (left or right doesn't matter)
I see 4 taskbar entries: the first is 3.PDF - Adobe Acrobat Standard (64-bit)
The second is entry is 1.PDF
The third is 2.PDF
The fourth is 3.PDF
Hoverover shows 3 screenshots of each PDF.