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Inspiring
August 13, 2018
Question

Surface Pro 4 plus Surface pen plus Acrobat Pro DC Version 2018.011.20055 on Windows 10

  • August 13, 2018
  • 12 replies
  • 21934 views

Hello,

I've searched the forums and Google and I can't find an answer to my problem.

I've been using Acrobat perfectly well for a number of years and marking up all manner of pdf's from designers and lawyers in that time. Open the file and simply start marking up. No issues.

I had my Surface replaced recently due to a hardware fault and on re-installing Acrobat I cannot for the life of me work out how to auto-detect the pen again. I'm now stuck with having to choose the pen mark-up icon and 'pin' it to keep it in use.

Now doesn't recognise the eraser end of my surface pen and pressure etc no longer detected. I know it works because it's been my saviour for ages but I cannot work out what I'm doing wrong or how I managed to set it up before.

Can anybody help?

This topic has been closed for replies.

12 replies

Participant
August 17, 2023

Activate TOOLS - COMMENTS

Switch on the pen.

 

Seen this video https://youtu.be/E_3N1foNosg

 

ls_rbls
Community Expert
Community Expert
August 25, 2023

@robertv11172784 ,

 

Thank you for updating this thread.

Participant
April 1, 2021

Having the same problem, anyone figure this out yet?

ls_rbls
Community Expert
Community Expert
April 1, 2021

Since this problem cannot be addressed via the Acrobat software preferences, have you been able to test by uninstalling and reinstalling the pen drivers?

Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
Legend
December 24, 2020

Probably be best to move the conversation to the www.Acrobat.UserVoice.com forum.

This is strictly a user-to-user help forum and rarely does an Adobe employee or engineer check these posts.

But the UserVoice forums are monitored by Adobe's staff and engineers.

 

So re-post at UserVoice. It doesn't seem like any of us users have an answer. Log it as a bug, not a feature request.

 

|    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |
Participant
December 24, 2020

Any solution yet? I have the same problem for a while already. 

ls_rbls
Community Expert
Community Expert
February 6, 2020

Hi,

 

It may be worth trying a few things first:

 

Participating Frequently
June 19, 2020

I don't have a solution, but as a surface user I have the horrible situation where with Acrobat Pro 2017 on one surface pro 6 the "Auto detect pen hardware to enable markup" checkbox in Commenting is simply not there.  On another surface pro 6 with Acrobat DC (CC edition) the checkbox is there.  And on a Lenovo Miix (like a surface) the checkbox is there.  Is there anybody with information on how this could be the case?

Participant
October 25, 2019

No help here, but I got since this week (23-10-19)  the same issue, only in acrobat DC. Re-installing (or other suggestions as given in this forum) have been tried but doesn't solve the issue.

 

Makes acrobat DC rather useless for us as this is a prime function we use and if it is not solvable we will need to switch to something else

Participating Frequently
March 28, 2019

I had the same problem. I switched to Drawboard PDF pro. There you can use the pen for the tools and move the page, zoom, flip pages,... with your fingers. Works very naturally as you would with pen and paper.

Participating Frequently
February 18, 2019

Anyone find a solution yet?

djking@dendroengine
Participant
February 6, 2019

If you get this figured out, let me know. I just re-upped my CC account and and having the same issue. It used to automatically switch to pen/pencil when writing on the screen and eraser when flipped around. Now when I use the pencil tool it's basically worthless.

Inspiring
October 18, 2018

So in the absence of being able to fix this issue I have just spent an hour chatting online with an Adobe Customer Service representative. Utterly pointless. I'm told (after an hour) that Adobe have decided to cancel all compatibility with the surface pen in recent updates... What? I have a suspicion that my customer service person had no idea what they were talking about. Can ANYBODY help?

sicunder
Participant
March 9, 2019

did you find any success? while going through my preferences settings i found that Adobe Acrobat (Non pro) does not even have that check box to " Enable pen hardware detection automatically". Can any body confirm if this is a bug on it's by design,  that free version is not supposed to have pen support?

Participating Frequently
March 13, 2019

Unchecking this box solved my problem. Your problem might be fixed by checking this box.