How can I hide the Tools Pane when opening a pdf in Acrobat?

[jaystar1945]

Whenever I open an existing pdf document, by default Acrobat always includes the right-hand side "tools pane", which takes up about 1/3rd of the window pane.  To minimise it, I have to always go to >>View,>>Show/Hide,>>Tools Pane>> then toggle/click.  Or on my laptop shift+Fn Key+F4.

How can I change this to not include the Tools Pane in full and just have it in its minimised form, like icons on the right-hand side, which is how it shows when I manually hide it.

[CVHManchester]

Why do they do this to us?  Perhaps because we are just the users, so not important within the Adobe programming kindergarden that likes playing.

[Dzt user]

Well, it's a joke that ultimately, the old acrobat reader is really the way to go. I don't see any benefits to using the new Acrobat Reader at all. They have to fix this...

[Shawn34418404gzvv]

Click "Menu" at the top left.  About 2/3 of the way down, "Disable new Acrobat Reader". Seems to fix the issue on my end. You can re-enable the new reader by clicking "View" (when running the old version), and Enable the new reader. 

[Katherine Hol34428490zk86]

Thank you, this worked!

[F_e_r_n]

 WHY DID THEY REMOVE THIS, its malarkey to have to deal side panel and all tools opening every single time one opens a document. I dont ues any of them and as a paid version why is this not possible?!?!

PS that restore last view setting doesnt work even though its checked.

[SARFARAZ311327402lon]

Permanently close the left-hand side, "All tools" pane in Adobe Reader

In the Preferences window, select the Documents category.
Check the box that says Remember current state of Tools Pane.
This setting ensures that the tools pane will remain minimized if it was minimized the last time you used Adobe Acrobat Reader.

It will work 100%.

Thanks,

Sarfaraz Mohammed

[F_e_r_n]

From what i can see this issue has been a problem for alot of poeple using this program since 2018, its 2025 and its still an issue. 

[ScraggyScale]

+1. It works but only in DC releases - see Old Thread. In Acrobat Classic these check boxes does nothing. Poor QC. I also wasn't able to report this through adobes support chat as they always told me to "upgrade" to the latest release. Just a joke these support centers...

[Marvelous_soul6483 · Accepted solution]

Here’s what worked for me:

Disabled New User Experience

Running Adobe Pro version 2025.001.20435 (64 Bit) on Win 11

To disable the new experience,

• Click the hamburger menu ( 3 lines ) at the upper left corner and choose Disable new Acrobat
  
  

Tools Pane

To prevent the Tools pane from opening by default in Adobe Acrobat  go to: Menu > Preferences > Documents and select "Remember last state of All tools pane when opening documents," then collapse the Tools pane, and save. 

Navigation Pane / Bookmarks etc (Global Hide)

Right click on open pdf file. Navigate to: Document Properties\Initial View(Tab)\Navigation and change Bookmarks Panel and Page to Page Only.  Then save .  However, only works for that single document when opened in future.

If you want to turn off panes or all pdf files opened regardless of what set by creator and not have to change initial view and save then edit the registry.

Launch %windir%\regedit.exe
Navigate to:  HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Acrobat.Document.DC\shell\Open\command

String to be modified is similar to this:
"C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat DC\Acrobat\Acrobat.exe" "%1"

Change to: "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat DC\Acrobat\Acrobat.exe" /A "navpanes=0" "%1"

Every pdf file from every location now opens up without the panes. Been annoying me for years.

[S. S]

Hi @Marvelous_soul6483,

Hope you are doing well.

Thanks for writing what worked for you.

Marking this as a correct answer for future users to use as a reference.

Regards,
Souvik.

[Christopher247958186ope]

How do I do this on a Mac?

[S. S · Accepted solution]

Hi @Christopher247958186ope,

Hope you are doing well. Thanks for writing in!

There isn't a similar registry code for Mac as in Windows. But, this is what you can try instead:

Go to > Folder > "~/Library/Preferences/com.adobe.Acrobat.Pro.plist" or "~/Library/Preferences/com.adobe.Reader.plist"

Edit or create the below keys and set their value:

bSaveAsDefault - false

bRestroLastViewSettings - false

bRHPSticky - false

Or, you can use the terminal to do the following:

For Acrobat Pro ->

defaults write com.adobe.Acrobat.Pro bRHPSticky -bool false
defaults write com.adobe.Acrobat.Pro bRestoreLastViewSettings -bool false

For Acrobat Reader ->

defaults write com.adobe.Reader bRHPSticky -bool false
defaults write com.adobe.Reader bRestoreLastViewSettings -bool false

Note: Make sure Acrobat is quit completely before making these changes. You can even go to Utility Manager > Acrobat > Stop Process.

Let us know if this helps.

Regards,
Souvik.

[Pascal5C34]

Merci beaucoup Monsieur Marvelous !!!

[scottr37226743]

There really needs to be a better, easier way to permanently "uncheck a box" so the bookmarks don't show up on every pdf document opened, instead of trying to find an IT person to do a registry edit.

[Amal.]

Hi there 

Hope you are doing well and thanks for reaching out. We are sorry for the trouble you are experiencing.

++ Adding to the discussion 

Please try the steps below and see if that works for you:

• Open the PDF in Acrobat Pro 
• Go to Document Properties (Ctrl,Cmd+D)
• Go to Initial view tab > Set navigation tab to 'Page Only' > click OK 

Let us know if that helps.

[leslie_9854]

This doesn't work for Mac. Please provide straight forward instructions to NOT open the Tools pane and the Pages pane when opening a new document. It is infuriating that when I try to use this product for a simple task it becomes so difficult. 

[S. S]

Hi @leslie_9854,

Thanks fr sharing your feedback.

Would you mind letting us know if you tried the terminal commands above?

If not, please give it a try and share the findings.

We can proceed accordingly.

Regards,
Souvik.