How to Stop Reader DC from Opening in Maximized View Every Time, for Every PDF File?

[abnerw52698110]

I just upgraded to Acrobat Reader DC the other day. Now, every PDF file I open, from any source, in any manner, opens with the reader in "maximized" view. This is just about the most irritating thing I have ever encountered, as Adobe provides no obvious way for this to be turned off. The older reader did NOT do this.

Is Adobe being a "bully" with hogging my screen space? or is there a way to set this so the Reader opens in a "normal" view: not maximized and not minimized, every time?

I have tried all the obvious settings, such as: Open to "last saved" view" setting;  Every option under Preferences... Nothing seems to work!

Please help... this is driving me nuts. I have other windows I use.

Thank you.

[Utkarsh_Upadhyay]

Hi,

For Mac machines, the changes need to made in the plist file "com.adobe.acrobat.DC.WebResource.plist" inside "/Library/Preferences/".

To make these changes, open any plist editor (you can download Pref Setter for this purpose).

Within Pref Setter (or the plist editor of your choice), press CMD + O & within the Finder dialog, press CMD + SHIFT + G (Go to Folder) --> Type "/Library/Preferences/" and press enter. Select the plist file "com.adobe.acrobat.DC.WebResource.plist" for editing. Within the Pref Setter window, change the value of "irandom" to 4000 & save the plist.

Once done, restart the machine to allow the plist changes to reflect.

If you are facing a similar issue in Reader as well, please make similar changes in the plist file "com.adobe.reader.DC.WebResource.plist" inside "/Library/Preferences/".

[howardh5178374]

I am running Adobe Acrobat DC on an I-Mac running the latest version of El Capitan.  I can find no com.adobe.acrobat.DC.WebResource.plist in "/Library/Preferences/".

When I look in this directory, all I see is com.adobe.acc,ac.plist, com.adobe.Acrobat.Pro.plist,

com.adobe.Acrobat.Uninstaller.plist. com.adobe.AdobeAcroCEFHelper.plist,

com.adobe.adobedigitaleditions.app.plist. com.adobe.ARM.plist and

com.adobe.crashreporter.plist.  That's the complete list.  In case I should be looking in

com.adobe.Acrobat.Pro.plist, I had a look at this file (using xcode).  It had many entries,

but irandom was not one of them.

I am still waiting for the solution to this very annoying problem.

[Guest]

Thanks Utkarsh this worked for me.

[richard_au1]

Great! It worked on my PC. Many thanks your hard work is much appreciated.

[Gabe-A]

Sorry, this does NOT fix it for me. Not at all. 2015.009.20079. PRO, not reader. The fact that I am using Pro makes a difference, perhaps. All I know is that the registry settings posted here as the answer does/do NOT work.

I changed the registry setting. Killed acrotray and updater. Loaded a PDF by double-clicking from desktop. It was maximized. I made a normal window. Bear in mind I am using a 4k monitor. This is an unacceptable behavior in general, but on a 4K monitor this is utterly, laughably, stupidly ridiculous to force all PDFs to open in a maximized window.

Anybody have a fix? I don't care what files I muck around in, what registry settings I have to use, what dark magic.

Also, I don't like the navigation pane on the left. Or the collapsed bars on the left and right. I want them gone and my decision respected for future documents. I don't want to sacrifice even a tiny bit of screen real estate because I am running in tiled mode and I don't want cruft or clutter. This software can so maddening from a simple annoyance/usability standpoint.

Edit: I added a new key "WebResource" under Acrobat Pro DC and a new DWORD inside called "irandom" which I set to 1000 [hex]. I also checked the box in Acrobat saying "restore last view settings when reopening documents". Now the entire 4096x2160 screen flickers annoyingly with a brief fullscreen mode when the file is opened, but the window then jumps down to the correct non-maximized size. Glitchy and hacky-looking as all heck, but it sort of works now and saves a click.

[Gabe-A]

I take it back. Still broken. This only worked on individual files I've already opened before. New files still caused it to open fullscreen.

A user has found the solution (SHAME on Adobe for not being able to fix such an obvious bug for months when it was right there in the registry by name):

Adobe Acrobat DC always opens PDF maximized, how do I stop this?

[richb16924710]

I was having the same issues. This is the information Adobe sent me directly.

Solution 1: Go to the desktop and right click select Personalize

Now click on Display on the left

From the 3 options available select Smaller - 100%

Click Apply and Logout & Log In again.

Solution 2:

Open Reader

Go to Edit > Preferences

From Touch Mode drop down

Select Never

Scale for screen resolution (restart required) select No Scaling

Click Ok and reopen Reader

It did not appear to work when I did it yesterday. But upon opening my first PDF this morning the window (and thus the printing issue) no longer appears maximized but in a standard sized window. Hope it works for everyone else.

[ScottVanScott]

I am also having these issues, but when I click on a hyperlink embedded in an Excel document.  Everytime, Adobe opens the new document maximized (on my 48-inch wide screen).  It does not matter if the last document I opened is still open and sized into a window on my screen, the next document will open it maximized again.  Other hyperlinks, such as a file manager launch or photos, will not open maximized, just Adobe.   

I am running Adobe Acrobat DC (20.013.20074) on a Windows 10 Pro (19041.746).  I have tried with no success some of the other the registry edits here (irandom), and those found in other strings for other variables, (such as ExitSection, bMaximizeNextDocument & bNullDocMaximized discussed at the following thread: https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat/adobe-acrobat-dc-always-opens-pdf-maximized-how-do-i-stop-thi... )

Any help and suggestions would be appreciated.  Thanks!

[Johnnie322654745h21]

I have the same problem, but happening with links from Word. Perhaps it's a Microsoft Office issue?