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mhs505
New Participant
December 21, 2023
Question

I cannot rename a PDF file saved to my computer

  • December 21, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 9310 views

I cannot rename a PDF file saved to my PC. The file closes whether I'm using File Explorer or MS Word to try to rename it. I use Windows 10 and Adobe Acrobat Reader. This has been a problem for months.

    2 replies

    A
    ade_0559
    New Participant
    February 4, 2025

    You can rename your pdf files by saving as new files. I did it and it worked.

    AnandSri
    Community Manager
    AnandSriCommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    March 10, 2025

    Hello!

     

    I hope you are doing well.

     

    As our Product Expert correctly mentioned, you need Adobe Acrobat to save a PDF with a different name, as this feature is not available in the free Acrobat Reader. For more details, please refer to this article:

    🔗 Saving PDFs

    As suggested, close the app, restart your computer, and try renaming the file through Windows Explorer.

     

    Let us know if you need any further assistance.

    Thanks,

    Anand Sri.

    try67
    try67
    Community Expert
    December 21, 2023

    You can't rename a file that's open in Reader. You have to close it first.

    M
    mhs505Author
    New Participant
    December 21, 2023

    The PDF file IS in fact closed and is saved to Dropbox and shown in my Folders in both File Explorer and Word. If I am able to name the PDF in the first place, I should be able to rename it as well. Again, this has been a problem for many months, and is still an aggravating problem today.

      Abambo
      Abambo
      Community Expert
      December 22, 2023

      I am not creating the PDF in Word. I am downloading existing PDFs into Adobe Acrobat Reader. Then, I'm saving the PDF file in File Explorer for easy access in the future.

       

      Adobe Acrobat Reader is fully updated.

       

      Reader and Word are not open.

       

      I have for at least 20 years been able to rename PDFs in File Explorer, and within my Word folders. I have been experiencing the problem I posted about today for at least 6 months. Why?

       

      This isn't rocket science.


      Close the preview pane. that may cause the problem. If you can't rename a file and all apps are closed, check in the task manager for zombie processes. 

       

      If all this does not help, you should post in a Microsoft forum. This may be an OS problem.

      ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer
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