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Dirk van Boxtel
Dirk van Boxtel
Participating Frequently
December 6, 2012
Answered

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

  • December 6, 2012
  • 47 replies
  • 197367 views
  1. Open a PDF file.
  2. Save it under a different name
  3. 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).

    47 replies

    Show previous replies
    M
    MCD-2012
    Participant
    December 2, 2015

    Is there anyone reading these posts who are going to fix the problem????? The only thing that works for me is when I duplicate the file then i can delete

    one or two pages and the error comes up again. I keep having to duplicate file and put it in a new folder. This is not the answer. What are adobe doing about this, obviously nothing. Driving me crazy.

      C
      Crocodile631
      Participant
      October 1, 2015

      Has been happening to me since I purchased in 2013.

      W
      whydoIneedonenow
      Participant
      May 31, 2015

      First time it's happened to me.  Acrobat 10.1.14.11.  Mac OSX Yosemite.  Occured after I saved the file.  Closing file did not work.  Had to close Acrobat before being able to delete again.  But upon saving the file again, it stopped working again.  Had to reopen Acrobat a second time.

        a_C_student11733502
        a_C_student11733502Correct answer
        Inspiring
        April 9, 2015

        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).

        A
        Adobe Employee
        apangasa11851843
        Adobe Employee
        April 10, 2015

        It's great that you are not seeing the problem anymore.

        J
        jlw1178
        Participant
        September 4, 2015

        I am still seeing the problem and when i click on check for updates, it says no updates available.. is this a bug or is this fixable? I'm confused.

          M
          mbmast
          Known Participant
          April 8, 2015

          Yup.  I get this problem too.  And I'm posting in April of 2015, so I see this problem has existed a long time.  Acrobat "Pro" (ha ha) is full of stupid, annoying problems.  And the interface is clunky.  I'm going use PDF Split and Merge to remove the page I'm struggling with.  Ridiculous that Adobe Acrobat Pro cannot remove one page from a PDF file.  I am NEVER upgrading this product.  I am done with Adobe.

            A
            Adobe Employee
            apangasa11851843
            Adobe Employee
            April 9, 2015

            HI,

            The issue is not reproducible at my end. Could you please specify the version of Acrobat you are using and your operating system?

            Thanks!

            M
            mbmast
            Known Participant
            April 9, 2015

            Version 11.0.10 on Windows 8.1 x64.

            The problem is intermittent.

            W
            wetland
            Participant
            June 18, 2014

            I would just like the second the frustrations of this user. Maybe I'm naively optimistic about this, but I'm still hoping that this long-outstanding problem could be effectively addressed in the near future

            Thanks

              annettemarieprice
              annettemarieprice
              Participating Frequently
              February 2, 2022

              And it’s still happening, eight years later. 🤯

                K
                K26418971kbn5
                Participant
                October 4, 2022

                It really is and it's so unfortunate. I have noticed that if you place the PDF on the Desktop, open it in Acrobat and try deleting the page it will most likely work. I find that sometimes when deleting pages from PDF that is sitting in DropBox won't work. Such an odd bug.


                Afters years—YEARS—and countless projects encountering this anomaly, I gotta say this "move [the file] to desktop" solution just worked (on one of the Mac OS desktops at least). Brilliant! Thank you for sharing. I hope this "fix" wasn't just luck today, though. Cheers.

                  Armadillo77
                  Armadillo77
                  Known Participant
                  December 11, 2012

                  I give up on Acrobat X. I do everything in Acrobat 9! The sad thing is that they haven't fix AX, and now they want me to pay for an Acrobat 11! What a joke.

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