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December 4, 2010
Question

What happened to the search box in toolbar in PDF Reader X

  • December 4, 2010
  • 8 replies
  • 67479 views

Hi,

Can anyone help on how to get the search box to show in the toolbar as had in previous versions of reader? There dosn't seem to be option to activate it in preferances. Seems idiotic to remove it, used it lot ot search documents, etc.

If it's been removed does anyone have link for verison 9.4?

Thanks in advace for any help

    8 replies

    Participant
    April 4, 2013

    Here's a link to an article that explains how to add the search icon to the toolbar.

    http://www.wyonewspapers.org/acrobat.html

    Participant
    April 2, 2013

    Did Adobe listen? No. Still no text box for the search option in the toolbar for Reader XI. We have 300 employees 10 of which probably know about using Ctrl+f and we have manuals and procedures all published in pdf format. We probably won't update as a company until this has been added back to the toolbar. Easier to stick with 9 rather than train that many employees and have them become accustom. Everytime a newer version slips onto a computer the user asks where their search bar went. UI fail.

    Participant
    April 2, 2013

    This is why I am happily using 9.5.3 after uninstalling Reader X a few years back.  It's not much of an inconvenience when vendors add features I have no use for, but when they delete features I depend on, it's a real pain.  I stopped upgrading my favorite image album software at version 3.02 back in 1997 when the vendor started shedding convenient features.  Last I checked, that particular program is up to version 13 or so, but my 1997 version runs fine under Windows 7.  If my work needs haven't changed, I'm not willing to change the way I work just because the software developers want me to do things in a different way.

    I'm no Luddite; I switched from Scripsit to WordStar to DisplayWrite to various versions of Word, then stopped at Word 2000 because it does exactly what I want.

    July 20, 2011

    Just to let Adobe know that I agree with everybody here: pretty retarded to remove the find box from the toolbar.

    And the new functionality is buggy too: I accidentally dragged the previous/next buttons on the find box, and they became invisible. Function was still there, even tooltips, but no icon. Worse, after that all other button icons in the toolbar became invisible as well. Same thing. I had to restart Acrobat to restore this.

    Acrobat X Pro on Windows XP Pro SP3

    Inspiring
    June 17, 2011

    This is so stupid I can't believe it. It's like Adobe is in a race to the bottom wit Bear Stearns and Leahman. You're losing, Adobe.

    Participant
    April 28, 2011

    What a pain.  I have had Reader X installed for ten minutes, now I find I have to uninstall it, locate the old version, and re-install that, because the old search box was my primary tool for reading PDF manuals.

    UPDATE:  Since I'd installed X so recently, WIndows 7's System Restore function worked perfectly in removing Reader X and restoring Reader 9.  It still took 10 minutes.   But why eliminate such a basic tool from easy access in the toolbar?

    Message was edited by: laserfaire

    Participant
    February 13, 2011

    You can permanently enable the search button using the following steps:

    1. Right click in the abundantly empty area of the toolbar

    2. In the pull-down menu, move your mouse down to "Edit  >"

    3. In the subsequent pull-down menu, move your mouse down to "Show All Edit Tools" and left click

    4. Voila, all your search buttons will now appear in this and subsequent documents

    If you are so inclined, you can use this method to enable all sorts of buttons, if you like lots of buttons and can remember what all the buttons do.

    To turn off all the new buttons, right click again the in toolbar and select "Reset Toolbars"

    May 17, 2016

    Yay!!! Thank you!!

    Finally, someone tells me how to get the binoculars back on the tool bar.  I don't want to have to repeatedly search.  I need the window that shows all occurrences of the word or phrase.

    Thank you!

    Legend
    December 6, 2010

    The quick search box in Adobe Reader X and Acrobat X opens and takes focus with the hotkey Ctrl-F (CMD-F) as it does in web browsers (and as it used to in version 9) - which as you're going to type into the box anyway is a quicker way to access it than clicking in the toolbar with your mouse.

    There's no option to customise the toolbars in the Acrobat X Family UI other than by manually adding icons to the Quick Tools area. The search field is not an icon so cannot be added by default.

    December 6, 2010

    Thanks for the replies, it would of been nice to have option to use either.

    The search box can be moved along the toolbar once control-F is pressed as you said but still have to use the mouse to use it, don't really see the advantage of having a box can move along the bottom of toolbar and not up and down the page. Software developers seem to keep dropping functanallity in upgrades/new versions of software and  try and say is advantage, prime example being latest verions of MSN' window live or whatever it's called.

    Cheers anyway,

    B

    Inspiring
    December 5, 2010

    You can add the Find and Search buttons to the toolbar, which when clicked will display theFind/Search text box.

    Participant
    December 5, 2010

    What an ugly, clumsy step backwards.  A real PITA.  Dumb, dumb, dumb (IMHO, of course).

    If reader X weren't so FAST, I think I'd go back to Reader 9 ...

    This new find/search paradigm is NOT progress, Adobe !!!

    Can we get a preferences selected option to use the old (pre-X) style, or if one actually likes

    the new method, the new X-way?  Please?

    Cheers,

    /kim

    Participant
    July 21, 2011

    This is ugly.. The drop down search text box keeps geting in the way of text on page, so I need to keep moving it around, so it's never where I expect it to be the next time I hit control-F, so I have to hunt for it eash time!

    Also, the forward/reverse buttons are far too small, making it painful to get the mouse positioned over them each time I need to find the next search item.

    Adobe: Please, let us move quick search back to the toolbar, with larger forward/reverse buttons (always displayed)

    Edit:

    Problem solved.

    1. Uninstalled Reader X

    2. http://get.adobe.com/reader/otherversions/  Installed 9.4, updated to 9.4.5,

    3. Turned off automatic updates.