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

[Dirk van Boxtel]

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.

[tlmurray23]

Similar to yours and Alain's comments, it has seemed for years that Adobe is more concerned with making headlines with cool new, fancy bells-and-whistles than it is with making sure its baseline products work properly and supporting the user base that got them the size they are today. 

[BHHSmichael]

You'll have to do better than that my friend. You're not going to solve it this way. No one in software development dept can look at the algorithms related to the message about 150k views have garnered since 2012? Is there a log file that you can point me to that I could send to you? Or perhaps I can turn a feature on to start logging for the future? If you don't have a log file feature perhaps the software team can add a log file feature so we can see the stack and better help your team. I imagine there is a fun little exception being hidden by that message we keep seeing.

[Fredr]

THANK YOU!  Placing it on the desktop worked... WTH????????

[TaylorMadeAmja]

ETA: it worked the first time on one file. Never again. HAH

---

Oh my gosh, dragging to my Desktop fixed it as well. <slams head on desk> 
I have been crying for years over this, hah! Is it a Dropbox thing? It's always happened when I would Extract a chunk of pages and tick the box to have them delete from the document they were in. I've had to work around it for yeeeeeears and it works fine when I do it from my office PC. Not my Mac?

[Kathy303lhd]

Brilliant! This "feature" has been with acrobat for WAAAAY too long. Thanks for sharing this workaround. Worked perfectly.

[Valerie28562374almc]

This worked for me as well!

[TCannon]

I can't believe this actually worked. Days I've wasted going through settings!!!!DAYS

[Jo29050789ic0c]

I did all of these things, and it still wouldn't work for me. I asked my boss if she had uploaded the document I was trying to delete from to Dropbox, and she said no, but she exited out, then it worked for me. So strange! 

[soteriosa50388483]

this WORKS!!!

-downloaded pdf ( in downloads folder ) and it wouldnt let me delete the pages ..

-dragged and dropped the pdf onto the desktop , and it let me delete the pages with no problem .. 

[TaylorMadeAmja]

So I did that and it worked once for me… I thought it was solved, I may have even responded on this thread that it worked… however it didn’t ever work again. I could determine what made the one file work and not the others. I still deal with this darned error!

Sent from my iPhone

[Tom29182836a17z]

Do you have Preview Pane turned on in Windows Explorer? Preview Pane locks the file and prevents modifications to it. The reason moving it to your desktop works is because the desktop does not have preview pane. Turn off Preview Pane in Windows, it causes problems not only with Adobe but with every other program too. 

[wolfgang7]

This is funny. I was editing from downloads folder and it worked. Saved it to Desktop and now it doesn't work lol.

[lynette_2134]

It worked. Thank you!

[aaqid]

Thank you so much. It worked.

[Timmy Larson]

Yup, happening to me as well... 8 freakin years smh

[GPGW]

I used the delete option via the 'Organise Pages" menu on the right hand side. Going in from the left-hand shortcut pane threw-up the error message.

[Abambo]

Since Acrobat 4 (?) or so, when I did first had Acrobat, I did not once see that message.

[GPGW]

I agree. I've had this issue, plus not being able to print within last month or two.

Feels like somthing is broken with Acrobat.

[Abambo]

I agree. I've had this issue, plus not being able to print within last month or two.

Feels like somthing is broken with Acrobat.

By GPGW

Sorry you misread. I did not ever see that. In my whole carear using Acrobat I only once had troubles with Acrobat on one of my 3 computers, and running AcroClean solved that issue. And I'm using Acrobat since Acrobat 4 or earlier. 

I did not misuse Acrobat, however, for tasks that it was not foreseen. 

The printing issue on Mac computers was caused by an OS upgrade that did some introduce either incompatibilities or bugs.

[Timmy Larson]

btw, wanted to say dropping it on the desktop on my Mac did work! Still a hassle.

[Cassandra259378569fkc]

Same. I had to drop it on my desktop for it to work. 09/02/2022. Such a pain to do that but thank you all for this thread, it helped.

[Christopher Delatorre]

Dropping it on the desktop doesn't work for me. Mac here. I mean.... shouldn't batch delete be a basic option? Come on Adobe, get with the program. I pay monthly for Acrobat Pro (version is up to date with "coninous release"). Not sure what the problem is but I ended up extracting the pages (select "delete" when extracting) and that cut the time commitment down a bit. Hope that helps.

[TaylorMadeAmja]

Christopher -- it is terribly frustrating. It only worked for one of my test files. The work files I NEED it to work for do not work and I get the same error. Man, I was reeeeeally hopeful the desktop thing was going to be a bandaid.

[Hongbae336603379w5u]

It worked. Thank you!! So much!!

[mbmast]

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.