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NCS4483
Participant
August 12, 2017
Question

Acrobat Reader DC "Do you want to save changes to … before closing?"

  • August 12, 2017
  • 5 replies
  • 20796 views

In the last week or so, Acrobat Reader DC has started prompting me with the 'do I want to save changes' dialog box. I've seen this question asked before, with answers like 'you get that because you've changed the file', or 'you have a corrupt file and Reader is correcting it', or 'you could create a javascript to suppress the dialog box'. I only use Reader to open and view files, so I'm not knowingly making any changes to the files. So my real questions is, if I'm not making changes to the files, what is making changes to the files. I've not had this dialog pop up until recently, so I'm wondering if something has changed in a Reader update, that is causing this behavior now.

I have the latest update installed:

Installed Acrobat: C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Acrobat Reader DC\Reader\AcroRd32.exe

    Version: 17.12.20095.239572

    Creation Date: 2017/08/10

    Creation Time: 11:24:48 AM

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    5 replies

    U
    unajet
    Participant
    June 12, 2019

    I know that it has been a while since you asked this question, but I have been having the same thing happen for a while.

    I have tried a couple of different online fixes but nothing seemed to work.  But then I tried something.

    Go to -  Edit  - Preferences - Documents

    The first line should be "restore last view settings when opening documents".

    I found that this sometimes makes the 'do you want to save changes' question go away for certain documents (even if it is the first time opening them).

    I hopes this helps a bit because it is indeed very annoying to see that request every time.

      J
      jferrone
      Participant
      November 26, 2019

      I've tried the various solutions here, nothing seems to work (Acrobat Reader DC).  I think I have at least isolated the issue for me, though.  If I open a document, then immediately close it, no message.  If, however, I PRINT it first...I get the message.  So I guess it's interpreting the act of printing as a change to the document that needs to be saved.  I basically never change a PDF otherwise, I open them all from our company sites, and they cannot be changed once they are in PDF form.  So this pop-up is infuriating to a good deal of us here.  A good part of my day is opening a document, printing it out, then closing it, so this pop-up has moved from an annoyance to a time waste.  If there is no way to set up the program as always read only, or otherwise disable the pop-up, I need another program. 

      dkmello
      dkmello
      Participant
      August 17, 2018

      This happens to me too. Not always, but maybe 50% of the time. It happens with newly-created PDFs from Chrome, MS Word, and maybe others. It happens even if I close a document immediately upon opening it. I have Acrobat Reader 2017 with all available updates installed.

      I don't want to disable Protected Mode, since PDF files are one way that malware can travel. (It might actually be illegal for me to do this because I work on a government computer and have to abide by their pretty-strict security rules, but in any case I don't want to do it.) How can I stop getting that annoying pop-up box?

        D
        DevDesk
        Participant
        June 25, 2018

        I have had the same problem from PDF's generated by our bank.  Obviously the bank is not going to change the way they're generating their PDFs because I'm encountering this error.  After dealing with this annoying pop-up over 250 times today, trying to disable Enhanced Security protected mode and so forth, I ultimately just downloaded the first competitor's solution that popped up in a Google search and like magic: no more annoying problem.  I've used Adobe Reader and Acrobat since it first came out ... due to this problem I changed to their competitor.  The responses in this string have to do with "corrupted" files ... if that's the case why do other readers have no problem with the file?

          J
          julianc18228698
          Participant
          August 14, 2017

          This works for me

          1. Open Adobe reader DC.
          2. Go to Edit > Preferences > Security (Enhanced).
          3. Uncheck Enable protected mode at startup and press ok.
          4. Re-open the document from connected desktop and you will be able to save without getting the save as dialogue box.
          brendar50933937
          brendar50933937
          Participant
          July 11, 2018

          I tried doing this and #3 was not listed under anything.

          T
          Test Screen Name
          Legend
          August 12, 2017

          Where are these PDF files from? Are they old ones you used to use from your own desktop?

          N
          NCS4483Author
          Participant
          August 12, 2017

          They come from several different places - MS Office file (Word/Excel) saved to PDF, downloaded PDFs (credit card statements, etc.), documents I've scanned to PDF. I'm getting the 'Do you want to save changes' dialog box on every PDF file I look at, when I go to close it.

          N
          NCS4483Author
          Participant
          August 12, 2017

          OK ... I've done some more checking ... it appears that I am not getting the save dialog box for all PDFs I open. It appears it may be happening on files that I have either printed to PDF (Save to PDF) or opened in Chrome and then downloaded (saved) to my computer.

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