Making Hand Tool the Default Choice

[vladk5779022]

In Adobe Acrobat Professional, after I select the Selection Tool and close the document, the next document which I open has the Selection Tool selected. (The program remembers the last choice.) What needs to be changed in the settings so that documents may always open with the Hand (Pan) tool selected?

[qwerty62]

Workd with Acrobat CC in July 2024. Thank you!

[Francisco27094106tsjw]

At last something that worked and easy! Thanks a lot, noemirPS!

[JR Boulay]

Thank you for this nice workaround.

Please Adobe fix this bug!!!

[CLAUDIA23297562j8p9]

I tried all of the options here and none worked, except for going to the: - Click the hand tool while viewing a document, then Edit < Preferences < General < Touch Mode: Select from the dropdown menu "Always". Click ok, then Close the pdf reader then open it, it'll bring the hand tool as your default.

[masud.pce]

Hand tool and selection tool is related to touch mode settings.

When the program detects that the user is using a touch screen then it selects hand tool. so that your hand can be used as usual way. But when it detects that , there is no touch input/display connected then it selects selection tool (cursor) for using with mouse.

So you need to set touch mode option to >Always. Thus the program will always presume that the user is in touch mode. And give you the hand tool as default.

To make hand tool default ,
Go to : Edit > Preferences > General >Touch Mode > Always

[hart8210]

Thank you!  This is a few months late, but I swear I didn't even have this issue last week.  I open many different pdf files all day every day and prefer the Hand tool as default.  This week every pdf opened defaulted to Select tool;  I never noticed this behavior before.  Am I crazy or could something have changed without my doing so?  But yes, the touch screen "always on" tip worked, for now.  Thanks!

[Maslamah]

Same problem here, I use program quite frequently but today when I opened it it was on select tool. I remember I solved it a few months ago by following noemirPS's comment after searching the whole internet,

but I'm back to square one now. 

[RWui]

Sadly, dozens users in my office are suffering the same problem after the latest update.  We have performed the various "fixes" and "workarounds" and none of them work anymore.

We used to be able to set Touch Mode to Always and the Hand Tool would end up being the default.  But after this latest update, even with it set to Always, as soon as you open a new file it starts off with the Selection Tool.

Still not sure why after the years of posts and complaints why they still have not simply come out with an option in Preferences to simply let the user select their default tool.

Maddening.

[dedwardsjr]

Having the issue with a few of our users today as well!  So frustrating!

[darrellc54457103]

Same here as of this morning. Back to square one again after trying past solutions. Staying tuned. 

[hart8210]

Wow.  Glad they fixed the bug of users having an option on this default setting! /s

[RWui · Accepted solution]

Just got off with Enterprise Support and they said these recent changes are by design.  They know all these work arounds that have been floating around on these forums no longer work after this latest update.

The Support Tech provided had me change a registry key and it fixed the problem. 

Browse to key:HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\DC\Selection
Set aDefaultSelect=Hand (instead of Select)

We did this several months ago, but updates revert this back to Select.  But it works.  Just have to redo it depending on the scope of the update.  

Once you create this entry, you can export this key to a .REG file.  Then you can simply run this file on all affected comptuers.  I would have your IT do this.

Good luck.

[Dota2Pro]

In my computer, each time I use Adobe DC, the registry file reverts back to "Select", Is there a way to restrict the permissions of this registry file?

[Dota2Pro]

As per the recommendations of an anonymous person, on top of the changes above, I also changed the data of bShowKeyboardSelectionCursor to 0 and it worked!

[smsaq4u]

This worked like a charm, thanks for the tip!

[McCready1982]

Thanks, this took care of the problem (for now).

[dedwardsjr]

This worked like a charm, thanks for the tip!

[smsaq4u]

This worked like a charm, thanks for the tip!!!.....

[Nathan24879315hpqs]

The regedit worked for me. Thank you! Such an annoyance solved by the community! Power to the community...! since Adobe can't seem to make a toggle switch in the settings lol

[anthony carrabino]

worked ... thank you for sharing this. 

[JR Boulay]

"I also changed the data of bShowKeyboardSelectionCursor to 0 and it worked!"

Dota2Pro Please can you elaborate?

It don't understand how to do this.

[McCready1982]

Open regedit and go to Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\DC\Selection.

Right-click bShowKeyboardSelectionCursor > Modify > set value to 0.

[Rikoski]

This worked! thanks a ton

[unclekirkie]

Windows 10, Acrobat Reader: both with latest updates.

None of the solutions here did anything. 

I even Revo uninstalled the whole Reader and shutdown and re-installed.

Then applied all the ideas (including this one). Still seeing Select tool every time I open a PDF.

Sigh....thanks for any ideas not in this discussion.

[Amal.]

Hi All

This issue is fixed with the new release 22.2.20212 now available. Please update the application from the help menu > check for updates and reboot the computer once.

For more information about the new release please go through the help page https://www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/acrobatetk/tools/ReleaseNotesDC/index.html

Regards

Amal