Reader DC Frustration

Report · Mar 17, 2017

On my work computer Adobe Acrobat X was recently exchanged for Adobe Acrobat DC.

Does anyone else have an extremely negative attitude to this upgrade?

Each time I want to do manipulate a document, like split or combine it, I am sent to a link asking for a ~$14 to have this feature.

The tab system versus individual windows slows me down with document saving because of the risk of saving to the wrong location.

There are several other frustrations.

The impact on my productivity has been so significant that, after three weeks of persevering with it, I have gone back to Acrobat X.

One wonders what Adobe was doing with the launching of this terrible update. Others must have had a similar negative experience. I would expect that cumulatively this will have significantly hurt the brand, as it has in my case.

Report · Mar 17, 2017

denism39572669 wrote
...
Each time I want to do manipulate a document, like split or combine it, I am sent to a link asking for a ~$14 to have this feature.
...

This happens when you use Acrobat Reader.

Report · Mar 17, 2017

denism39572669 wrote
On my work computer Adobe Acrobat X was recently exchanged for Adobe Acrobat DC.
Does anyone else have an extremely negative attitude to this upgrade?
Each time I want to do manipulate a document, like split or combine it, I am sent to a link asking for a ~$14 to have this feature.

That's because Acrobat Reader cannot edit documents. Your work folks should have exchanged Adobe Acrobat X for Adobe Acrobat DC but it sounds like they actually gave you Adobe Acrobat Reader DC.

denism39572669 wrote
Others must have had a similar negative experience. I would expect that cumulatively this will have significantly hurt the brand, as it has in my case.

You bet. Some like the upgrades, some don't. Some pick up on the changes and can use them efficiently right away, some don't. It's subjective.

But you need to get the proper product and give it a fair shake first. I can't say I like everything about the DC upgrades but there are plenty of things I do like so it pretty much just evens out for me personally.

Report · Mar 22, 2017

Thank you for your comments graffiti.

To avoid any misunderstanding here are the descriptions of the products that I am talking about. The one originally on my system was Adobe Acrobat X Standard (X). It was replaced (either by the company IT, or via an Adobe update) with Acrobat Reader DC (DC). As so many features were lost with the change I have altered the Start Menu file association to return to the original situation of X being used to open pdf files.

To be clear, I am very used to software package upgrades and will embrace these if there are advances in functionality. Here it was the reverse, it was taking me backward.

The full list of benefits of X over DC is the abilities (a) to split pages (at no cost), (b) to merge pages (at no cost), (c) to have documents open in separate windows (instead of the one window, multiple tabs format of DC) and, (d) to encrypt documents (at no cost). These may be individually small but accumulatively a large differences in feature given that I may deal with 5 to 20 documents daily and need to manipulate them very quickly.

Apart from the perhaps ethical issue of my denying additional income to Adobe by expecting to continue to use features historically provided without charge am I missing something?

Report · Mar 22, 2017

I'll answer inline again...

denism39572669 wrote
Thank you for your comments graffiti.
To avoid any misunderstanding here are the descriptions of the products that I am talking about. The one originally on my system was Adobe Acrobat X Standard (X). It was replaced (either by the company IT, or via an Adobe update)

It was your company IT. Adobe Acrobat Reader DC is not an update, upgrade or even connected to Acrobat Standard or Pro.

denism39572669 wrote
Thank you for your comments graffiti.
To be clear, I am very used to software package upgrades and will embrace these if there are advances in functionality. Here it was the reverse, it was taking me backward.
The full list of benefits of X over DC is the abilities (a) to split pages (at no cost), (b) to merge pages (at no cost), (c) to have documents open in separate windows (instead of the one window, multiple tabs format of DC) and, (d) to encrypt documents (at no cost). These may be individually small but accumulatively a large differences in feature given that I may deal with 5 to 20 documents daily and need to manipulate them very quickly.

Also to be clear on my end, that is because your IT department gave you the wrong software. They didn't "upgrade" anything, they gave you an entirely different product.

The "upgrade" for your former Adobe Acrobat would be Adobe Acrobat DC and NOT Adobe Acrobat Reader DC. The names are a little confusing but they shouldn't be confused as being the same product. You need the full version of Adobe Acrobat DC. That does all of the things you have mentioned above and is the "upgrade" for the product you used to use.

Hope that makes sense and helps clear things up for you and your IT folks.

Report · Mar 22, 2017

Oh, and don't come down too hard on your IT folks. This last version (DC) Adobe decided to change the name of the product from Adobe Reader to Adobe Acrobat Reader so people keep thinking the Reader is Acrobat because it has that word in the name. This happens a lot.

Edit: Before purchasing anything else, go to this page and make sure it has all the options you need. You can see the product matric for Acrobat Pro and Acrobat Standard. Plans and pricing: Compare versions | Adobe Acrobat DC

Report · Mar 23, 2017

Hi graffiti

This is most helpful. Thanks a lot for patiently walking me through this. It helps me a lot as I now know exactly what to address with our IT and, as you advise, I will not be too hard on them.

Regards, Denis