Purchased Acrobat Pro but Acrobat Reader Keeps Coming Up

[Carrie25676263wpxj]

I just purchased an Acrobat Pro license and installed it.  When I try to open it either from the Desktop App or from the online account link, it only opens Acrobat Reader and says I need to purchase a Pro license.  I NEED to get this resolved to combine files for a client deliverable. 

[jane-e]

@Carrie25676263wpxj 

Hi Carrie,

Do you see Acrobat DC Pro in your Applications folder (Mac) or Programs (Win)? Can you open it from there?

Can you tell us how your question is related to ISO Standards for PDF and/or Compliant PDFs? We can remove the tag if it was accidental.

• https://www.pdfa.org/pdf-standards-explained-with-a-focus-on-the-newest/

• https://www.section508.gov/create/pdfs/

Jane

[Carrie25676263wpxj]

I've tried to open it from the program folder and it still opens up Acrobat Reader.  

[CBRERaleigh]

I am experiencing the same issue with numerous employees in my company. They all have paid for licenses with Acrobat Pro DC. Upon assigning each employee a license, they receive an email inviting them to Adobe and a link to set a password and download creative cloud. They follow the setup and download creative cloud. In creative cloud, they download Acrobat DC (no option for Adobe Acrobat Pro or Reader, just Acrobat DC). The app shortcut appears on their desktop after download is complete. When opening the app (Acrobat DC), Reader launches instead of Pro. Reader shows their account is signed in and when we go to the account via the account link in Reader, the account opens in Adobe.com and the Acrobat Pro DC license is visable and active. The only fix I have found is to uninstall Acrobat DC, sign out of creative cloud, sign back into creative cloud, and reinstall Acrobat DC. After the second install, Acrobat DC launches to Acrobat Pro as expected.

I contact Adobe tech support and their diagnosis was "They installed the wrong program" and sent me a link to install a standalone version Acrobat Pro DC. I have not tested the install yet as I am to busy fumbling with the unofficial fix I stumbled upon regarding uninstalling and reinstalling Acrobat DC through creative cloud on all PCs in my company experiencing this issue.

I would recommend trying my steps if you just have on PC experiencing this issue. It seems to be faster than explaining the issue to Adobe Tech Support just to have them point you away from Creative cloud and sending you the link to install Acrobat standalone (unless you would like the standalone version).

[Khannah30771264sfpt]

Is there an answer to this?! Adobe needs to monitor these things better if you paying for something you expect it to work or at least a work around until resolved

[Alesha30512183endx]

I'm also having this issue! This is ridiculous it used to be available to download from creative cloud app. Now no matter what I do it downloads reader instead!

[mariahweyne]

It will download the reader, sign in with your credentials and activate premiium features.  Try this link.

[Alex31884202dis3]

Uninstall everything with an Adobe name on your local system (Reader, Acrobat, Creative Cloud, everything), login online to your subscription Creative Cloud account (not the free one you had with Reader), download from there Acrobat Pro, install it locally.

[Michael33217504rxt7]

At least for me, it wasn't too complicated. I was able to connect remotely with an IT agent and the problem was that the full-fledged Acrobat didn't automatically install when he installed the Creative Cloud and individual apps, even though it appears on my Cloud "dashboard" as if I have the full Acrobat app. If your machine had the "freebie" Reader to start with, however, apparently it doesn't get replaced or upgraded.

He had to hunt around within the Acrobat app itself and found there was a place to "upgrade to Premium features." A long download/progress bar/installer ran and then, bingo! I had full-fledged abilities that included editing a PDF. If you can find that, you may be able to do it yourself -- don't think he did any sort of Admin login/priveleges, just activated the upgrade as if it were me "driving" the keyboard and mouse.

[mariahweyne]

Make sure the user is logged into their Adobe account and then Go to 'Help' tab in your Acrobat Reader and choose 'Install premium features' from the drop-down menu.

[Alexander33636637agf5]

This solved the issue of being stuck in Reader for me, no Admin needed.

[Edina - Peyto24303693o8ws]

I know in the past if I had Signed out, re-installed using the stand alone link, then sign in that would help. This is much faster and did work for me. Thank you!