Why change everything?

[reginal79098089]

Why? Why do you "creators" feel a need to completely change the layout of toolbars, etc. in a program?! Do you have nothing to do so you just search out what you can do to aggravate us? Adobe Acrobat DC is now TOTALLY different in the toolbar layouts! WHY???

[Frans v.d. Geest]

It is still here after the latest update...

[Karen3321586214yx]

Regina, I couldn't agree with you more! I was able to disable the new Adobe!

[Mark25055654fwx5]

If developpers don't dream up more and more changes all the time, there will be no development to do, and they'll have to go find different jobs.

I forget which program it was I was using recenlty (don't think it was Adobe though), and the 'x' we have all come accustomed to finding in the top right corner of the page, they now have it situated in the centre top of the page. Really? After decades of it being where it was, it working just fine, and everyone knowing where it was, someone decides it should be somewhere else.

There should be a number of people (programmer, development project manager, middle managers, and a VP or two) out of a job for doing these things.

[Nancy OShea]

If developers don't dream up more and more changes all the time, there will be no development to do, and they'll have to go find different jobs.

By @Mark25055654fwx5

=======

That's such a silly remark.  There's no shortage of jobs to do.  Adobe makes changes to software to keep pace with what Microsoft and Apple are doing.  If Adobe didn't make changes, your software would be incompatible with your computer's operating system.  Full stop. 

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

2 things to note:

1) Adobe's developers don't make the decisions about what goes into or gets changed in the software. The marketing department does that, which is why comments at https://acrobat.uservoice.com/, which is overseen by marketing, have greater weight than those in the volunteer user-to-user Community Forum where this post resides.  Today, programmers are just code jockeys who are told what to do. They even have to get approval to correct bugs.

So don't beat up the developers for this fiasco of a revamp. They were just doing what they were told to do.

It's the design team that did this, but again under management's instructions. They threw out 40+ years of research on human behavior and GUI / UI / UX design and created a mess that doesn't even allow access to some of Acrobat's widely-used utilities — tools that many businesses and industries need to run their businesses every day.

2) I've been a beta tester/advisor for Adobe and hundreds of other companies for nearly 40 years. I've been through a lot of operating system changes for all OSs.

As a beta tester, I'm starting to see the new features and utilities planned for Acrobat-Sometime-in-the-Future (and I'm very excited about them)!  But none of those features, or the current features, or their operating systems require changing icons, or designing 2 icons to look nearly identical but have polar opposite functions, or leaving lables off icons so users play "WTF is THIS icon for", or superimposing tool panels on top of content, or hiding some long-standing tools altogether, or making the scroll bars invisible on Mac OS, or flipping the location of tools left-to-right and vise versa, or...?

Operating systems generally don't control functions or GUI design, just behind-the-scenes coding requirements. When it comes to the cosemetic interface appearance, they recommend certain overall design aesthetic or theme, but don't require it AFAIK.  When a change like that is made by Adobe, I haven't seen it change functionality, just merely a facelift of what's there already, like the movement to a simplified less-cluttered interface design but not the elimination of a function.

As far as I can tell from Adobe's beta/prerelease comments, nothing in this last GUI overhaul was caused by a change or requirement in either OS. (And if it did, think a little stronger about that idea — which OS would Adobe comply with, Windows or Apple? Mobile or desktop?)

Something positive:

If you'd like to contribute an idea of what would make Acrobat work better for you (no complaints — Adobe has heard enough of them!),  hop over to an Acrobat Wish List post https://acrobat.uservoice.com/forums/590923-acrobat-for-windows-and-mac/suggestions/48153893-new-acr...

Let Adobe know what's missing from the new version, what you need to have restored, and what new features you'd like.

We might actually see some progress on this!

[jilll47525288]

Adobe needs to pay attention to this resource.  I've tried providing feedback through other sources when people like you post different website addresses.  I've never been able to actually post anything.  And by now, I'm so aggravated by all the problems that Adobe has created that I can't even remember all of my complaints.  

The information Adobe needs to know is well documented throughout these community discussions.  If Adobe really cared about user input, they would look here instead of ignoring this resource.  

The latest version of Acrobat was so horrible that I reverted to an older version and will never go back to the new one.  Nonetheless, Adobe continues to cause problems for me on at least a weekly basis.  At least once a week, my computer chokes because of Adobe updates, making it necessary for me to reboot my computer.  Sure, I could turn off automatic updates, but that would create other problems.  

You say you're a beta tester.  Why don't you let Adobe know that they need to look here for customer complaints?  You clearly have a way to communicate with Adobe that most of us don't.  

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

... You say you're a beta tester.  Why don't you let Adobe know that they need to look here for customer complaints?  You clearly have a way to communicate with Adobe that most of us don't.  

By @jilll47525288

Why do you assume that I and other beta testers haven't tried?

Adobe's honchos don't listen to us any more than they listen to customers like you.

Like most software companies today, they are owned primarily by private equity investor groups who get to stack the board and management suites with their people. Unlike the original founders who came out of the then brand-new digital publishing industry, current management doesn't have a clue what any of us do with their software.

And I wonder how much they really care. After all, don't we all still let Adobe take hundreds of dollars a year out of our bank accounts — whether the software works or not?  If you're a professional, what other software can you use?The competitors have all been bought out by now.

It's a lousy situation for us customers, whether we're talking about Adobe or Microsoft or Canva or any other software company.

[JR Boulay]

Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com If you're a professional, what other software can you use?The competitors have all been bought out by now.

If Adobe definitively imposed the new Acrobat interface on us with no other choice, I wouldn't hesitate to use Foxit Editor.
Not out of spite, but because its interface is more productive and it's much less buggy than Acrobat. I use it to work, not to have fun clicking endlessly in absurd menus/tools.

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

Everyone has different tasks they want to do in Acrobat or another PDF editor, so your choice of software depends on what tasks you need to do.  I classify these tools into these levels:

Level 1 — Ultra basic tools to open and read a PDF file, save it to your computer, or print it on a desktop printer. Even the cheapest freebie should be able to do this.

Level 2 — More functions, like adding comments (aka, markup) to the PDF, fill in form fields, add digital signature, combine different tyes of files into one PDF, redact content, and edit the content (swap photos, correct typos, etc.).

Level 3 — Advanced tools, such as OCR/scanning, stamps, Bates numbering, compare PDF files, export to different types of files (such as Word and PowerPoint), and add rich media (aka, video).

Level 4 — Pro tools, especially those for specific industries. Print production / preflight tools, check for various PDF standards (/A archive, /E engineering, /X print & graphic arts, /UA accessibililty), create forms, bulk emailing for comments and signatures, security, accessibility remediation and validation.

Only Adobe Acrobat Pro is at level 4, but other programs might have one or two of the tools in that group.

Some of our browsers have recently added Level 1 tools to do those tasks right in your browser. Mozilla Firefox is one brand.

I like Foxit's interface: it appears to be easy to figure out and use. But it has many shortcomings that aren't obvious until you discover that the tool doesn't work like it should: Accessibility tools is one category that doesn't meet the needs. Also note that it is a Chinese-owned and based company; some governments (like the US federal government) won't allow it to be installed on their agency computers.

Some more ideas are in this recent blog: https://pubcom.com/blog/acrobatnew/

[JR Boulay]

Thank you Bevi.

I'm working with Acrobat since 1996 and I know this.

Last year I reported a bug in the free Foxit Reader that was penalizing one of my customers (cannot delete spawned pages). It was fixed in three weeks, and they sent me an email to let me know about it and to thank me.

Another country, another way of life...

[rishabh370576915m9m]

On Ipad OS now, they seem to have removed the option to revert back to the classic design, why is this happening, the new design is laggy as well, when i tap on screen to remove the gui from view, the whole thing moves the page up or down, and it's slow, the classic view was snappy, is there a. way for me to go back now, or do i need to shift to another pdf reader?