Why does the DC installer remove Acrobat Pro XI, and all of its plugins, without warning?

[Teilo]

When you run the "Update" to Acrobat DC, Acrobat XI, and any plugins you are using, disappear. There is no warning. Pro XI is just simply gone.

It is not possible to install Pro XI along side of DC. If you try, the install seems to work, but the Applications folder only contains DC.

Also: Acrobat Pro XI does not appear in the Previous Versions list in the Creative Cloud app.

The only way I have found to get Pro XI back is to uninstall DC, then go to the Pro XI Download page: https://creative.adobe.com/products/acrobat

Click Download, and the CC applet will download and re-install Acrobat Pro XI. You will then need to re-install all your plugins.

Adobe: Thank you so much for creating a massive support headache for your customers! Your ability to screw us over knows no bounds.

[Guest]

I am so upset with Adobe Acrobat DC, it is ruining my business.    I am a Mobile Notary Loan Signing Specialist.  I work with Title companies all over the U.S.  I get docs for loans from a secure website, print two sets and take to borrowers/sellers to get signed and notarized.  Since I upgraded to

the DC, (my mistake), I can't get XI back.  Now it takes me 2 hours to print 92 pages twice, where it use to take 20 minutes for both.  Please give me back Adobe Reader XI.  

[ravim94602492]

effing Adobe!!

They have created a massive headache for me to since this live DC bs!  I have Acrobat Pro, and it no longer works!

[dcannatella]

I second Teilo's complaints.

I'm paying a lot of money for Adobe CC, and what makes these problems partictularly annoying is that the online documention is horrible.

For example, I am trying to UNINSTALL Acrobat DC, and Creative Cloud will not allow me to do this. Worse, a Google search for "adobe acrobat DC uninstaller download" yields nothing about how to uninstall, only links to installation. There's no excuse for this.

My simple question is, where can I download Adobe DC uninstaller for the Mac?  A clear and unobnoxious response would be appreciated.

Dave

[scrumplestiltskin]

dcannatella,

I'm not an Adobe expert, but I believe I can answer your question, and I sympathize with your frustration.

Follow these steps to uninstall Adobe Acrobat DC:

1. Start the Adobe Cloud application.

2. Find Acrobat DC.

3. Click the Gear icon next to Acrobat DC.

    A context menu appears under the Gear icon as shown in Figure 1.

   

    Figure 1: context menu under the Gear icon

4. Click Uninstall.

5. Follow the remaining instructions or prompts that appear on your machine or device.

    Adobe Cloud uninstalls Acrobat DC.

Hope this information helps.

[Kalaniokai]

I can only agree that you have wasted my entire work day in trying to fix this installation nightmare! Your offer to install Acrobat DC at 14.95 per month HAS NO OPT OUT.  I want access to my paid for Acrobat 11 version back.

The lost productivity in this issue is staggering and I will not at all be surprised if a class action lawsuit springs out of this debacle. I for one would sign up for that.

[Gary__F]

I've made a backup of the Acrobat Pro v11 installation file so I can always re-install it again if my computer dies. The CC desktop app keeps telling me there's an update but I ignore it knowing that Adobe haven't addressed the issues documented in this thread.

David, there is a link early on in this thread to download the v11 install file. I don't know if it still works?

My biggest gripe, apart from the crashing, is the horrid interface that's ridiculous on my 27" UHD monitor. Acrobat DC has been designed predominately with tablets in mind with no thought for professional power users who work from a desktop and need all the tools on-screen at the same time.

[lrosenth]

Gary – do you really need every single tool on the screen at the same time? I can understand the need for custom grouping(s) of the tools, which is why we have the ability to create custom tool sets – with full choices of what goes on the top bar and what goes on the right hand panel.

Can you elaborate on why that doesn’t address your needs?

[Komoda]

Yes, we need to be able to set it up OUR way, not your way.  Gary may not need every tool, but Gary needs EVERY TOOL GARY NEEDS, not a few tools you think Gary might need.  Sorry, but your way really sucks.  I really try not to use Acrobat for anything anymore, simply due to the interface.

For instance, I use PitStop Pro.  I have set up tool bars and groupings.  But nothing is persistent.  So say I have an order for 45 DIFFERENT posters and the client sends me all the files.  I need to open them and make a few minor, quick adjustments that use tools from different tool bars.  Say it only requires 2 tools.  I open all 45 files at once in different tabs.  I then have to open the tool bar that I want to use on EVERY ONE OF THOSE TABS.  That means I have to click the tab, click tools, scroll to find the tool bar I want, click the tool bar, then make my changes - ON EACH TAB!!!!  4 x 45 = 180 clicks in what would be 2 clicks in a properly prepared Illustrator or Photoshop Workspace.  And if it wasn't prepared, I could set it up on the first tab and it would be persistent through the rest of them.  But then I have to do it all again because the tools are on different tool bars.  360 EXTRA clicks and mouse motions on alternate screens.

In Acrobat I have to know every tool that I am going to use for one job and set up a tool bar with all of those tools because I can only access 1+1 or 2+1, whatever it is it doesn't matter because again, they are not persistent so I have to activate them over and over and over again.  On a good day I might need to process close to 1,000 files.

How can you not at least understand this?  If you refuse to make the changes for whatever reason, fine.  I will wait until some other company trumps you or your current UI designers are replaced by people that actually use the program.  I mean really, didn't Windows 8 teach you that designing JUST FOR TOUCH is a HORRIBLE idea?

In case it still has not sunk in, here is a perfect analogy:  You are framing a house.  Every board needs to be measured, marked, cut, and nailed.  So you get the tape measure out of the truck and measure the board.  Then you go back to the truck to get the pencil to mark the board, but have to put the tape measure away first.  Then you go back to the truck to put away the pencil and grab the saw.  You cut the board, go back to the truck and put away the saw.  You get a few nails and a hammer.  You hammer in all the nails.  Now you have to start the process over on the next board.  EVEN IF IT IS THE SAME LENGTH!

Give me back my computer.  Give me back my screen.  Make the UI similar to AI or PS and you will make about a billion people happy.  You (Adobe) already know it works wonders and know how to make it happen.  I don't see how this could possibly still be an issue.  Just fix it already.

[lrosenth]

I look forward to hearing more from Gary on his needs, but in the meantime, let me address the ones that you (Komoda) raise.

You are addressing a completely different problem – that of whether there is a single set of tools shared by all documents (ala Ai or Ps) or whether each document has their own tools (as we did with Acrobat). This issue is not as cut and dried as you seem to think.

So let me “open the kimono” a bit and let you know how this came about.

We interviewed a LOT of customers (1000’s) from various market segments that Acrobat touches – creative, legal, AEC, government, etc – to understand how they work with multiple documents. In the vast majority of cases, they use different tools on different documents. For example, they are doing forms authoring in one, text editing in another, and commenting in a third. Because of this, we chose the model that we did as it matched their way of think about “focused tools”. You can think of this as the Acrobat variant of “Workspaces” (in our CC apps).

But you are right, for a user that is doing the same thing on each document – the tools-per-document model is non-optimal. And I am sorry that you are impacted by our decision, but it was one we went into with our eyes open based on our customer research and which we aren’t looking to change. (NOTE: giving users a choice of which type of model to use – while it sounds like a good idea – really isn’t viable as it tends to cause all sorts of training and support issues.)

You jokingly mentioned billions of users – but for us, that is the reality! There are billions of users of Adobe Acrobat + Reader. Each of whom use the product in a myriad of (different and unique) ways. No matter what we do – leave things alone, change them, pick white vs. black, etc. - someone will be unhappy because it impacts their particular workflow. And remember, this is quite a different user base than what our Creative Cloud teams have to deal with – where they have a lot less users and all of whom are all in a single bucket (Creatives).

[Komoda]

I don't normally advocate for the firing of individuals, but if the stance truly is that Adobe has no interest in making a program that works for its most dedicated (if not most populous) users, then yeah, whoever made that decision and refuses to see the error in it should be fired. 

The very worst part is that Adobe staff agrees that there is an issue and that it is "non-optimal" and that "training" is really the friggin reason!

Even Everquest 2 and WOW allow the users to change the GUI to meet their needs.  I can set up ribbons in Office programs to do what I want.  I can even make my own custom ones.  And they are persistent so that it works HOW I WORK every time.  It is patently ridiculous to claim that it is too confusing for its users to set up stuff.  We write massive macros and scripts within Adobe products to meet our needs. We program keyboards, tablets, and mice to automate our work.

Of all the professional programs I use (Office Suite, AutoDesk Suite, SketchUP, Creative Could, Composer, FlexiSign) the only program that I can think of that has this problem is Acrobat.  Mind. Blown.

The only reason you have a problem pleasing everyone is because you took AWAY features.  I seriously doubt anyone gives a crap if you make your current GUI available to the masses.  We just care that you took away our workspaces and toolbars.  Like most of America, Adobe has decided to meet the lowest common denominator rather than rise to the top.

And yeah, I am pretty passionate about my computing experience.

[Kalaniokai]

Well said and supported!

[Gary__F]

lrosenth, pretty much what Komoda said. He (sorry, I'm making a gender assumption) understood what I mean without having to ask me to explain myself because he's a real user of Acrobat, not its developer, support agent or project manager. If after all this time Adobe are still questioning customers who don't like the dumbed down toy GUI in DC then I guess it will never become the product we need it to be. i.e. the product that it was.

Can you imagine if Photoshop was given the same GUI treatment that Acrobat received? There would be a massive backlash from artists, designers and photographers who have desktop computers. Mobile users will probably love it, but you'd lose all your desktop customers.

I've resigned to the fact that Acrobat v11 was the end of the line... until Nitro PDF and the other PDF editors surpass its functionality.

[Kalaniokai]

After a lengthy on line chat battle with Adobe customer support over several days of to get my Pro 11 back; I have finally found a way to circumvent the expense and difficulty of getting rid of Acrobat DC Pro.

Delete it and install a competitors software.

If you own Adobe stock I would get rid of it because "Cloud" or software "rental" is  going to cause a mass exodus back to a simpler life. I simply don't have that kind of money to pay for software on a monthly basis or high end Direct TV either.

Another example of the "have's" and the "have no'ts" in an increasingly polarized society.

[Igor.Freiberger]

It's sad to come back here after months and still find Adobe staff trying to convince users about the correctness of Acrobat DC interface. I went back to Acrobat XI long ago and will not update to the new 2016 version, no matter how wonderful Adobe marketing describes it, as the UI approach is the same.

More and more I hear people asking for ways to escape from CC – mostly due to the subscription model, but also because of drawbacks like Acrobat DC problems, lack of support for third-party plugins, lots of inconsistencies between applications, slow bug corrections and so on.

[michaelm56724827]

Got rid of Acrobat 3D Toolkit. Wont let me us it anymore.

Bastards.

[renestenfeldt]

Hi there,

It's August 2017 and my Acrobat Pro DC just killed my 3. party quickbar tools.

This is really frustrating!

The Quite Impose and Pitstop plugins is “deleted” from Adobe Acrobat Pro DC tools menu.

This means that, i can’t get it to the quickbar tool pane.

I just tried to uninstall everything, and installed acrobat again, then quite Impose.

It worked after reinstall and updating to the newest version.

This morning when i opened the program, the tools is gone from the pane.

I also made a quickbar tool pane, and the icons is gone from there.

I contacted adobe support, and they told me to contact the 3. party application, but this is related to Acrobat Pro DC.

Do you have any solution for this, as it’s really frustrating.

[glaustin]

If only Adobe listened to their customers instead of telling them they're wrong, they would be unstoppable....

[renestenfeldt]

Well i just got this answer from Pitstop - GREAT Adobe!

We've had reports of this issue by several of our customers already. For all the customers that we tested, we installed a plugin from another third party vendor. The plugins from the other third party vendors had the same issue as PitStop Pro. This proves that the issue is not caused by PitStop Pro, but by a change in Acrobat.

We also discovered that removing the Acrobat preferences temporary resolves the issue. This is another indication that it is an issue caused by Acrobat.

If you wish to test yourself, you can use the free trial of the Quite Imposing plugin, which you can download here

http://www.quite.com/imposing/download.htm

If it also doesn't show any toolbar, then you can use this as proof to Adobe that the issue is not caused by PitStop Pro.

Please also check this page which describes how to remove the Acrobat preferences to temporary resolve the issue. This will be much faster then reinstalling Acrobat:

https://www.enfocus.com/en/support/known-issues-and-solutions#!/SupportPortalSolution?id=50157000001...

Kind regards, 

Jonas Yde

Enfocus Product Specialist

[abailescollins]

Update on the disappearing tool bar story.

You do not have to remove your Acrobat preferences.

In Acrobat preferences, please enable “Open documents as new tabs in the same window” to avoid the issue until Adobe permanently fixes it in Acrobat.

Known issues and solutions | Enfocus

[DCinFrance1]

Does not your arrogance know no bounds? I PAID for Acrobat XI. You had and have no right to destroy my property with out a word or option to say no, stick your DC trial up your rear end. I got it back to work by reinstalling it because I wasn't about to get dragged into you software rental scheme. However, now all the menu text, icons, option bars, etc. are 10 times their correct size and I have spent hours on trying to fic it to no avail. And your analogy of other software...I'm sorry, Acrobat XI and Acrobat DC are DISTINCTLY different products. I will never pass on an opportunity to tell others, both by word of mouth and social media, about your scam and your response to it.

[kevinm97684847]

That's all very nice. You failed to mention that I bouth the stand-alone Acrobat Pro  becuase it had a few basic editing features I use and have used for 10 years. All I used if for was signature and coverting WORD to PDF. I upgraded to Pro years back to ge those features. I worked fine on Tuesday. On that day, I upgaded Litghtroom. I've been a Photoship user for over a a decade. In the process of upgrading and aos purchaseing Spark, you doenloaded your MONTHY FEE versionof Acrobat and removed my Acobat Pro 11. That's called forcing me to pay you once a month for you upgraded version which I don't need. Thanks for noting. I also use Abbey Soft Reader. I believe the can do PD work - and there's no exstra subscription. I did did not buy your upgrade. I recent teh way this was handled.