Participating Frequently

Answered

"One or more pages are in use and could not be deleted" - AGAIN.

Forum|Forum|13 years ago
December 6, 2012
47 replies
197348 views

Open a PDF file.
Save it under a different name
Try to delete a page

You'll get this error:

"One or more pages are in use and could not be deleted"

I've had this billions of times now and the only solution that works 100% of the time is closing and re-opening the file. This leads me to believe it's something with "locking" the file while saving, but not unlocking it after done saving.

GET THIS FIXED PLEASE because it's annoying LOADS and LOADS of people.

As evident by the 7000+ search results for the exact phrase "One or more pages are in use and could not be deleted".

And that's just the part of the userbase that actually reports the problem.

There are several topics about this issue, some marked as "solved" erroneously.

Note, I'm a paying customer, use Photoshop/Illustrator/Dreamweaver/Fireworks and Bridge during my daily work, and have had this issue for months and months across several different computers (two different workplaces, and at home) and have ran into this time and again, when all I want to do is cut a PDF into several smaller PDFs.

Closing and re-opening your program because you're unable to fix this issue is NOT ACCEPTABLE. It's THE WORST kind of user experience, as this issue is the ONLY reason I use Acrobat at all, and it can't even do that.

Cheers,

- Dirk

Ps.: Sorry, I'm very frustrated running into this time and again, and then having to wade through thick mud (your site is a UX nightmare) to report this issue, which has been report oodles of times on this board before.

Correct answer a_C_student11733502

For me - using Acrobat Pro X on Windows 7 - this problem went away when I updated Acrobat Pro to the latest release (Help > Check for Updates).

Show previous replies

I

Isaias0D4C

Participant

I am still having this issue now with Acrobat DC Pro DC.

J

jolyonralph

Participant

Ten years on and this still isn't fixed.

Please, Adobe. Make your software that we pay a monthly fee for useable.

Having a major bug like this unfixed for TEN YEARS is not acceptable.

RXTF

Participant

Adobe, this is STILL happening. Get your s**t together and fix this. We should not have to put up with your incompetency.

J

jolyonralph

Participant

Feb 2022 and this problem still hasn't been fixed.

It can't be that difficult to track down, can it? Or at least explain to us why sometimes pages are locked and prevented from being deleted, and how we can deal with it. Because it's extremely annoying to say the least.

М

Михаил235914224zd4

Participant

March 15 2022 Problem actual
it gets even worse when you select pages and click extract - delete after extraction. A deletion error appears, parts of the pages are deleted, but not extracted.

TaylorMadeAmja

Known Participant

Yes, my exact same problem as well.
I was on the phone with Adobe Support months ago and they suggested that I take my open PDF and export the file out of Acrobat. (I cannot remember exaclty which export option we did) We did it over the phone and I was able to then delete chunks of pages and avoid the error. So, that is something to consider.

What I've just been made aware of —and worked in my test document so fingers crossed it works from here on out—is to drag the PDF to your Desktop, open, and then do what you are trying to do. I see it helped a lot of other people as well. 🙂

Q

Qael

Participant

All I do is jump from issue to issue not actually being able to get any work done. Actually fix your programs instead of forcing us to exist in your capitalist hellscape Adobe.

K

Kas229901627mo7

Participant

Such a bummer to read this thread. I've been a paying customer for the last 7 years and operate on a mac. This issue started about 6 months ago. Like everyone the experience is frustrating and disruptive to the workflow. Has anyone found a good alternative to Acrobat? I am ready to ditch this platform, especially since they are not making an effort to resolve this. I operate on Catalina 10.15.7 and have the following acrobat specs

Architecture: x86_64

Processor: Intel

Build: 21.11.20039.0

AGM: 4.30.115

CoolType: 6.0.3

JP2K: 2.0.4.50016

S

scotw74004221

Inspiring

I tried "the best alternative" PDF Expert for the Mac but ran into compatibility issues with the Workproof ProofHQ website we use with our clients. Same goes for OS X Preview – compatibility problems when using the resulting PDFs with the proofing site, and Acrobat on Windows (others in the office have no issues with Acrobat). But if all you need is to hand off the PDF itself, try PDF Expert.

O

OhioNT014

Participant

Dec 2021 and I am expriencing this issue. I'm guessing its not a concern for Adobe to fix or address since the original post from 2012! I created the PDF from InDesign. Acrobat X, using a OS X El Capitan. If I open it on a PC, I can delete the page, but not my MAC. Frustrating.

S

scotw74004221

Inspiring

This is still a bug in Acrobat. I'm using OS X Catalina and latest Acrobat DC as of 11-09-21

S

Sarah5782

Participating Frequently

I am having the same problem with Adobe Acrobat Pro DC (32-bit). It has been updated and this annoying issue shows up sporadically and nothing I've tried fixes it. I have to download the correspondence for our law firm from a government entity. I have downloaded and resaved it to no avail. I've tried using different Adobe methods from selecting the pages and trying to extract and clicking on Organize Pages and trying to extract the pages, which sometime works and sometimes does not. I then have to separate the correspondence and distribute it to the attorneys and admins. When I have over 300 pages of mail in pdf and cannot extract the pages accordingly it causes me a lot of stress and annoyance. I don't know if the problem exists in the downloading process or not. There just seems to be no end in sight to correctly resolve this problem.

D

default0nhtbiaj8u3p

Participant

I was able to delete the page by saving the PDF then closing Adobe Acrobat Pro DC (32-bit) then closing Adobe Creative Cloud that was running in the background. Then I re-opened the PDF in Pro and deleted the page. I also set Creative Cloud to no longer open at start up. Hopefully this works going forward. I never had this issue till recently when I updated windows. (The update also corruopted my Outlook PST file which I fixed by running ScanPST.exe)

O

ozziet34197704

Participant

I was able to solve this issue without updating my application. If you are on Mac, go to finder and find the file. Duplicate the file. Open the new file and pages can be deleted. Not sure how to do this on PC but I assume it is a similar solution? I hope this works for others.

Show more replies

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded