Why change everything?

Report · Jun 22, 2023

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???

Report · Jun 24, 2023

@reginal79098089 wrote on 22 June:

Adobe Acrobat DC is now TOTALLY different in the toolbar layouts!

Hi Reginal,

I have yet to hear from someone who likes the "new experience" in Acrobat, but it is easy to turn off!

Steps to enable [and disable] the new experience

To enable the new experience, go to View > Enable new Acrobat and click Restart.
To disable the new experience,
- Windows: Click the hamburger menu ( 3 lines ) at the upper left corner and choose Disable new Acrobat.
- macOS: Go to View > Disable new Acrobat.

Details about the New Experience here:

https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/new-acrobat-experience.html

Does this help?

Jane

View solution in original post

Report · Feb 24, 2024

Was this even tested before it was released to the public?
By @Jerome DCProud Lewis

Adobe has pre-release testers for all the Creative Suite programs and Acrobat. Occassionally I see Adobe announce for people to join the testing program.

Many of us community experts here in the forums are testers for Adobe, and many of us have been doing this since the 1980s and 1990s.

I can't recall much positive feedback from the testers before the "modern" Acrobat was released to the public. I know my comments back to the engineers were fairly extensive. Some things were improved (darkening the icons from a light gray to a dark gray, for example). But for the most part, the comments have fallen on deaf ears.

Over the past 18 months, I personally have continued to use and test the newest beta releases, but I often have to abandon them and switch to another computer that runs the "classic" interface. I have only so much time to donate to Adobe to dignose problems (and provide detailed bug reports and comments to the engineers). I, like most folks here, have a job to do. Working for free for Adobe is not on my to-do list.

3 suggestions:

Disable the new Acrobat and revert back to the "classic" interface. I believe that all of the old functionality is still active there.
Join the Acrobat beta testing group. I don't know where to direct you to join, but try searching for a public page in the Acrobat section of Adobe's website.
Consider another brand of PDF editing software. The PDF file format was placed into the public domain about 15 years ago and since then, other companies have developed competing programs. Wikipedia has a decent list of other brands. One of our favorites is ABBY Fine Reader/PDF.

But note that none of these competing programs have all the features of Acrobat, so if you're in certain industries, you're really stuck with Adobe Acrobat. These industry-specific features include:

Accessible PDFs and documents
PDF forms
Printing, graphic arts, and preflighting for print
Security
Digital signatures
Automated PDF documents (aka, stuff like bank statements created from a database a on grand scale)

So see if any other alternative brand gets the job done for you. Be careful of the company's country of origin: you might not be able to install software from certain countries, which is the case here in the US for government computers. Example: FoxIt is a Chinese company and usually is not allowed on our government clients' computers.

As always, don't forget to voice your comments on UserVoice and click the button to VOTE. That is the only place where Adobe takes notice of customers.

Let Adobe know:

You can voice your opinion about the new interface at UserVoice: https://acrobat.uservoice.com/forums/590923-acrobat-for-windows-and-mac/suggestions/47082691-ditch-t...

Be sure to leave a comment about your experience with the new interface. They need to hear from users. And don't forget to click the VOTE button.

FYI, UserVoice is Adobe's official website where it reads and takes into account suggestions and complaints from users of its various products. On the other hand, this community forum is a user-to-user help forum.

View solution in original post

Report · Feb 16, 2024

You're welcome @David35511310aar9 😊

Jane

Report · Mar 19, 2024

It did revert the current document, but the next time I opened Adobe, it became the new version again. I also can't shut off the damned tour. I'm about to just uninstall this worthless POS and use Bluebeam for everything. Programmers: making themselves 'important' at the cost of productivity. Way to go.

Report · Mar 29, 2024

This response above no longer works ! We seem to be stuck with the "new view" like it or not. I'm on the 'not' side

Report · May 07, 2024

Adobe's idea os "new menu" look is the worst idea and experience ever. Totally arrogant behaviour....new menu structure should be "offer" not automatically turned on only to leave users wasting their productivity REMOVING the DOWNGRADE

Report · Sep 11, 2024

Thank you!

Report · Jun 25, 2023

Change is hard. But time marches on & nothing stays the same. Welcome to progress. 😁

If Adobe didn't innovate and make product improvements, you'd be just as unhappy but for other reasons. 🤔

Nancy O'Shea— Product User, Community Expert & Moderator

Report · Jun 26, 2023

There's change for the purpose of updating an application's functionality or ease-of-use and there's change for change's sake. I consider the latest changes to the Acrobat/Reader UI to be the latter, since they didn't add anything new to the application in terms of functionality, nor did they make it easier for users to access tools.

In fact, they did exactly the opposite. By swapping the locations of the Tools and Pages/Bookmarks/etc. panels and hiding the menu bar they caused a great deal of confusion for many users, and even broke the functionality of custom-made tools created for the application. Not to mention made many of the tutorials created for the application in the past obsolete, just because the tools needed are no longer in the same locations.

In short, I suspect it was only done because companies like to give their users the feeling they're getting their money's worth when they pay a subscription, and if nothing changes it's as if you're paying for the same old thing over and over again. In fact, people pay for an application like Acrobat for it be usable to them, not for it to be "pretty", so I think this was a huge miscalculation and mistake on Adobe's part.

Report · Jun 26, 2023

@try67,

From our limited vantage point as product users, we don't always see the bigger picture.

Speaking as a web developer, I sometimes have to move furniture before I deploy new construction.

Nancy O'Shea— Product User, Community Expert & Moderator

Report · Jun 26, 2023

I don't have a limited vantage point.

I'm a beta tester and UX designer for 30 + years.

In previous GUI revamps, we've been given reasons why it was necessary: to accommodate more functions, work better with new OSs, perform better on wide high-res screens, etc.

But no reason was given for this latest revamp.

And frankly, I can't come up with a decent reason why what was in the left menu for the past 30 years is now on the right. Nothing new in the interface, except that toolbars that used to have words now have dozens of tiny grey indecipherable icons.

Why? I do not know why. I agree with @try67 comment above.

The new interface is active only on my beta testing computer. My real work computers throughout the shop use the traditional workspace. We have jobs to do!

Report · Nov 09, 2023

Why? I do not know why. I agree with @try67 comment above.

By @Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com

To make sure you know in which version of the UI you are working.

I for my part never loved the old UI. I always struggled with what was changed from the very old UI. I simply love the new approach, and I have no issue with left and right. And I'm also a veteran using Acrobat frommat a time where nobody new Acrobat ("Sie sind mir ein schöner Akrobat" "you are a funny acrobat to me" was the very first answer I got, when I did send out my first PDF file.)

If left and right is the only problem, there is no problem.

I can understand, however, that people have problems with change. I too have.

ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer

Report · Aug 30, 2023

Companies exist because of its customers, not the other way round.

Companies need to provide what the user wants, not vice versa.

Dismissing users' concerns as simply "resistance to change" is oversimplifying things.

Yes, I will move the furniture around in my living room, if there is a reason for it, or because I've now come up with a more aesthetically pleasing arrangement.

Not because I'm having a slow day, so I randomly move stuff around out of boredom, without checking with the inhabitants of my house if it's ok that they will now be tripping all over and hurting themselves, but they should just accept it. Because. Change.

Report · Jun 28, 2023

Change is hard. But time marches on & nothing stays the same. Welcome to progress. 😁

If Adobe didn't innovate and make product improvements, you'd be just as unhappy but for other reasons. 🤔

By @Nancy OShea

'Change' is not always the same as 'Progress'! In this case, a clear example how it is not...

Report · Sep 05, 2023

Wrong the term "progress" implies a beneficial change; what we have here is change for change's sake. This UI/UX update is an unmitigated disaster that never should have made it out of the planning/proposal stage. It would behoove Adobe to get user feedback before considering further changes that upend the current user experience.

Report · Feb 08, 2024

It's like Adobe was taken over by youngsters (as arrogant as the original message) who have no idea that Acrobat is more than just a document viewer. Hiding all the productive tools in drawers inside drawers is hardly proof of any kind of vantage point.

Report · Jun 28, 2023

The most notable innovation is the inversion between navigation panels and tool panels, and an impressive number of extra clicks to do the same task.
I guess it took a lot of brainstorming to come up with this result!

Report · Jul 05, 2023

I couldn't agree more! I have never understood why the changes developers make happen when it seems there's no improvement and often takes a step backward. Making changes just for the sake of making a change with no real legitimate reason is the worst thing developers do.

An additional major problem with this new release is there's no option to open PDF documents independently. I HATE opening multiple documents within the app.

That said, I at least tried to give this new view a chance. I would continue to give it a chance, but not being able to open PDF files independently is why I'm changing back.

Report · Jul 05, 2023

An additional major problem with this new release is there's no option to open PDF documents independently. I HATE opening multiple documents within the app.
By @Louise in the Midwest

By now I'm sure you've disabled the "New Experience" following the instructions in the second reply in this thread.

Can you clarify your second issue?

What are the steps you are using to open PDFs "independently"?
How did it work before and how does it work now?
Are you on macOS or Windows?
What is your version (exact) of Acrobat?

Jane

Report · Jul 05, 2023

Yes, I have changed back, but I'll clarify.

In the previous version, you could go to Edit>Preferences>General and, under Basic Tools, uncheck the option "Open documents as new tabs in the same window (requires relaunch)". This prevents PDF files from opening in the same Acrobat window as tabs. It's annoying that it's not available in the new version. That option alone would have me trying out the new version longer than just a couple days.

Report · Aug 22, 2023

Thank you for the answer to my question about how to open pdf's individually! I've been looking for it for awhile now. 🙂

Report · Aug 09, 2023

I'm so thankful you asked the correct question or I finally searched the right topic. I've been going nuts trying to figure out why I could not print a pdf Portfolio and where did my toolbars go, why the menu bar items start showing up on the right when it's always been on the left. Not cool! I'm so thankful for the person to provided a solution to the nightmare. Thank you @reginal79098089 and @jane-e

Report · Aug 09, 2023

You're welcome @Gwen31584783596p !

Jane

Ditch the 2023 User Interface in Acrobat · Aug 14, 2023

Tell the Acrobat engineers and marketing department to ditch this new "Modern" Acrobat interface. It doesn't work.

VOTE HERE: https://acrobat.uservoice.com/forums/590923-acrobat-for-windows-and-mac/suggestions/47082691-ditch-t...

Report · Aug 30, 2023

I am feeling inches away from not abiding by the guidelines, as I am livid having WASTED, nearly an hour trying to figure out where the tools I have used regularly in Adobe Acrobat Pro on my Macbook Pro, customized set up -- where have they gone and why I cannot seem to re-set as before? Why would Adobe Acrobat team do such a maddening thing???!!! I still have to spend time to figure out how to get the tools I used accessible to me!! I try to get the tools I want but it will not allow me to, as it indicates that the tools I need to do MY JOB are somewhere in the program ---grayed out!! Not based on what Acrobat thinks I may want. UGH!!!!

Report · Aug 22, 2023

i agrre. the new lay out is horrendous. leave things alone

Report · Aug 22, 2023

@noggin nocker

restore to the traditional.