Prevent, suppress, avoid Navigation Pane display

[Brian_Raila]

I have read a zillion comments on this topic.  Many point to Acrobat Preferences settings.  Some of those are referring to extinct versions of Acrobat DC.  The only promise of certainty seems to be through hacking Windows Registries.  I am on a Mac.

This has bothered me for ages.  With some documents Nav Pane showed, sometimes not.  I could never discern a pattern.  Until now.

I isolated a known and proven and reliably No-Pane document.  I've built a whole, complex production, deliberately sticking to uncontamination of this Pure Document, taking care to not bring in pages from contaminated, known Yes-Pane documents, etc.  Things have been swell, over the course of production.  I have been delighted to not see the dreaded Nav Pane make an appearance.  I can live with it, during compositin.  For my readers, and for the document's graphic design sensibilities, the Nav Pane is death.  Here is what just happened:

After many thousands of 'Master' document edits, the Nav Pane reappeared.  I had duplicated the Master, to  TestDoc, to evaluate operation of some button functions, and a few simple lines of script.  The test went as I'd desired.  I went to bring some of those test features over to the Master, likely via copy/paste.  Lo and behold, I saw the dreaded Nav Pane showing in Test Doc.  I feared that reproducing said button functions/scripts would contaminate the so-far pure Master.  So I set about writing this post.

In the middle of writing this, it occured to me that I should go back and replicate the problem.  Took the same genesis version of Master that had spawned TestDoc, duplicated it to TestDoc2, copy/pasted fields and scripts from TestDoc to TestDoc2, expected TestDoc2 to become somehow infected with Nav Pane disease.  It didn't happen!

So I shall continue developing the Master.  But just so I can sleep at night, without anticipating its reappearnce in some way that can only be cured by rebuilding all, from scratch, the question becomes

1. What, in fact, and in truth, and for certain, causes the Nav Pane to show, or not?
2. How might one remove/eliminate its showing for a set of documents [all of TestDoc's family of a dozen or so variants] in which it appeared without explanation?

I know there are such things as Purification Rituals and Sanitation Measures, and such, often in the guise of Preflight, Print Preparation, and down-the-line necessities.  What in the world might manage [cuz it's clearly something in the document, not the user's keyboard/mouse, and Preferences unchanged during this 'infection'] the default visibility of the Navigation Pane in the Acrobat Viewer Window?

[JR Boulay]

You can stop stressing about documents.
The display of the navigation pane is not related on the document, it's related on the software used.
The behavior you observe on your computer may be not reproducible on others.

[Brian_Raila]

Nice to see you, JR.  I know of your abundant helpful comments in this Forum.

Allow me to demonstrate that change in Nav Pane display is related to the document, and not the [unchanging] display software used.  In fact, I found the culprit [a change to document] that had 'soiled' intended display of my document.  Does it work differently for you?

No Nav Pane is displayed in attached

Forum 1 - Envelope One Sent T6 BG...Bright at +50 HOLD Opacity 93.0 Export GIMP as PDF - NO NAV PANE.pdf

I then Insert Page [after], via ⇧⌘T.  Result is

Forum 2 - Envelope One Sent T6 BG...Bright at +50 HOLD Opacity 93.0 Export GIMP as PDF - NO NAV PANE, Insert Page 2 - YES NAV PANE.pdf

Henceforth, the document is soiled forever.  And I stress, the document, not a given page.  I cannot get the document back to its original, unsoiled state, as seen with

Forum 3 - Envelope One Sent T6 BG...Bright at +50 HOLD Opacity 93.0 Export GIMP as PDF - NO NAV PANE, Insert Page 2 - YES NAV PANE, Del Page 2 - YES NAV PANE.pdf

All of which would argue that there's got to be a way to cleanse, clean up, debug, comb, prevent, block – the flag, trigger, or variable state, which determines this document display behavior.  I can see how Windows Registries might override the document, in this regard.  But for me, Insert Page does more than insert a page.

Curiously, if I go back to Forum 1, and drag in a thumbnail of either page from the soiled YES NAV Forum 2 document, Forum 1 is unsoiled, unaltered, vis-a-vis display of Navigation Pane; it remains a NO NAV document.

The change in behavior appears entirely to revolve around the Insert Page operation.  I have not tested other mechanisms to add a new page, e.g. Organize Page, JavaScript.  

As for the software used, this happens using a constant, unchanged, unaltered version of either Acrobat Pro DC, or Acrobat Reader DC.  The viewer display behaves as I report, with successive document loads, repeatedly – Nav Pane comes and goes [reliably, of all things], regardless of sequence, app restart, etc.

1. What happens for you?
2. If different than I report, what OS?  What display software?

Cheers,

BR

[JR Boulay]

Tested with Acrobat Pro on Windows 10.

You're right, it looks like a real mystery...

[Brian_Raila]

Here's the latest.  It seems that when I attach a [only tested w PDF as attachment] document to any 'NO NAV' document, it thence becomes a 'YES NAV'.

You can repeat this.

Open Forum 1 - Envelope One Sent T6 BG...NO NAV PANE

Add Attachment Forum 2 - Envelope One Sent T6 BG...NO NAV PANE [or even attach Forum 1 to itself].

Forum 1 - Envelope One Sent T6 BG...NO NAV PANE is now and forever more a YES NAV PANE.

– – –

Speaking of Viewer Windows, JR, I'd welcome your thoughts regarding my objectives expressed in this Post, if you search to –

"Does Acrobat allow script-control of the viewer window?"  Akin to Initial View.  It would be marvelous to be able to, for instance, toggle On and Off the 'Hide tool bars' setting.  My impression is "No".  I mean, it would be terrific to effectively be able to command the viewer window – 'Snap to Image', or 'Snap to ButtonXYZ'.  My current approach to this, in such as a 'sibling documents dance', is seen at time-point 0:36, in Carnegie-Stadia op het Podium.

[try67]

It is possible, actually:

app.toolbar = false;

[Brian_Raila]

Marvelous.  I like the prospect of greater control over how the reader is presented the content.  Until now, I could control some, via Initial View, but not on a page-by-page basis.

The remaining villain is the Navigation Panes – most specifically, the Navigatin Panes 'tool category icons' [e.g. paper-clip, bookmark, target], not just the 'operational area' of the panes, themselves [e.g. Add Attachment].

I am made to wonder if it is possible to set the state of, in the spirit of app.toolbar – app.navigationpanes [or whatever it's called].

But even if so, I'm looking for more than the equivalent of a scripted F4 [which fails to close the Navigation Panes tool category icons].  See attached.

The only way I've found to hide the Nav Pane fully, is 'Initial View: Hide window controls'.  This provides a fabulous start, but then leaves reader in a lurch when Zoom > 100, and the window controls become relevant.