How to turn off Auto Adjust Layout by default?

[Manjack_ITVA]

Hey, guys.

I use Acrobat frequently in a professional capacity to edit PDFs I have generated through Excel and Google Sheets. The PDFs from those programs have color coding, cell bordering, and text size elements that are very important to the final document. However, as soon as the new update went live, Acrobat started to open these documents, immediately begin the Auto-Adjust Layout process (no way to cancel) and promptly remove all colors, the majority of cell borders, and revert a good amount (but not all) of the text formatting. This makes my generated documents completely useless for their intended purpose, and there is no way to revert the changes once they've been made. 

Is there some way to turn this feature off? I cannot access any edit settings, the gear becomes greyed out as soon as the process starts. When I click the info bubble beside the Auto-Adjust line, all it says is this very helpful tidbit : 

"Content adjusts as you edit, like in"

That's it. "like in" without any program names or further information (see screenshot). This feature has made Acrobat not only unhelpful for PDF edits, but actively damaging to the files I import. There must be some way to set it to only activate when I want it to, right? I've looked everywhere but can't find it. Elsewhere I have heard Adobe refer to this as an intended feature of inDesign, but this is Acrobat, all I need to do is open PDFs the way that they were generated and sign them. If anyone has any information, it'd be much appreciated.

Specs:

Lenovo ThinkPad 2019

Intel i5 Processor

Windows 11 64-bit

Acrobat Pro CC

Thanks!

[Kiki Litchford]

Acrobat updated over the weekend and gave me the same problem when I got to work Monday morning. I frequently edit certificates directly in Adobe, and the update auto-enabled the content adjustment function with no indicator of how to turn it off. It "auto-adjusts" my single-page file into two, apparently setting some new default margin that will be a bear to reverse every time I try to edit something - why not just pull the margins from the original document like the legacy editor does?

The solution that worked for me was backing out of the Edit PDF function by going to File>Revert. Once the document was back to the way it should look, I went to Edit>Preferences>Content Editing and unchecked the box for "Enable auto-adjust by default", then restarted the program.

[Paul29495221qrs5]

I'm using the latest release of Adobe Acrobat Pro (64-bit) and I don't see the "Enable auto-adjust by default" check box.

[Kiki Litchford]

This is what it looks like for me. On a PC, you can also access this menu using Ctrl+K.

[Paul29495221qrs5]

I have the latest version installed, and here's the dialog box:

[Bernd Alheit]

The option is available in Acrobat with the new UI.

[Lynda-Mc]

Very helpful, thank you. 🙂 

[Shannon30160919zcit]

Thank you so much for this, you have saved me from throwing my laptop at the wall. I hadn't run into this issue until this morning and thought I was losing my mind.

I was just trying to move tables in a report down slightly in order to add a footnote in below a chart, but it would only allow me to slightly move one text box at a time, and if I tried to bring in a new text box to force things to shift down, all formatting broke. I've done as you suggested and I was able to select everything that needed to be shifted at the same time and shift down without everything going everywhere.

What a terrible feature. Why would anyone want to make Adobe PDF as frustrating as editing in Microsoft Word? 

[Bernd Alheit]

Does you use Acrobat with the new UI?

[Paul29495221qrs5]

I'm using the latest version on Windows 11.

How do I enable the "new UI"?

[Bernd Alheit]

Read this:

https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/new-acrobat-experience.html 

[Paul29495221qrs5]

That option doesn't appear under "View" on my system. From the webpage at the provided link:

"Note:  Currently, the new experience is being rolled out as an experiment and available for Acrobat (64-bit) English locale only with no third-party plug-ins installed. The feature may not be available to all users."

[S de Saulles]

Why oh why have Adobe implemented this weird feature as the default setting? Absolute madness. Very clever, but I might want to use it on 1 in 100 PDFs I edit at most.

The Adobe search within Acrobat Pro doesn't even have "Auto Adjust" as a thing, so thanks very much to those below who've found where it's hidden!

[Elizabeth31826932w897]

Agree.  this is absolutely a useless tool to have on Auto.  should be a tool you select specifically for whatever you might be working on. 

[S. S]

Hi @Elizabeth31826932w897,

Hope you are doing well. Thanks for sharing the feedback.

Please feel free to add it to the wish form here: https://adobe.ly/4dfypDu to ensure it reaches the dev team for review and future implementations.

Thanks,

Souvik