Full Tools, Menu customisation
Acrobat DC wastes so much screen space in non-customisable areas - It is common to 'snap' the Acrobat Application to Half-Screen - but doing so hides many menu Tools, but ALWAYS leaves 'Home, Tools, Document & then The Login Name. - These are rarely (never) used.
Please allow them to be Hidden, Or return Menu/Tool icons to a 'normal' design/style as used in the previous 10 versions of Acrobat.
'PRO' does not = Tablet user.
Hi,
We are delighted to share with you that Acrobat and Reader Desktop release for DC Continuous (21.007.20091) is Live now and this Takes care of the Feature Request to Change the Display Size of the Acrobat without changing the Scaling/Resolution of the machine. This can be Done from “View” → “Display Size”. For now this is avaialble for windows only.
More Info Here : https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/whats-new.html and go to “Change Acrobat Display Size”
Please update your Acrobat (It should Auto update or you should do Help → Check for updates) and let us know your Feedback.
Thanks
Ayush Jain
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Anonymous commented
This is by far, the worst User Interface on any software I've used. Recetly upgared to Pro DC, even worst.
Please adapt the most common user interface out there, add a ribbon or at least go back to Acrobat XI style, can't find the commands like I used to. -
Anonymous commented
It now takes me 4 clicks, where it use to take 1, how is that an improvement? Is this the Windows 8 of Acrobat?
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TL commented
GOOD GOSH. The words "Home Tools Documents" takes up too much space. I use acrobat in portrait orientation and cannot see all of my tools. SECOND ROW OF TOOLS OPTION!!!!
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Anonymous commented
Please allow for a second row of toolbars so we can use our most common icons.
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Kelly Vaughn commented
Hre is a video about how to customize the toolbars in Acrobat: https://youtu.be/zpG3kDvmTJ4
And you can still use the underline tool and color it whatever you want. It's just not very obvious how. First click on the Comment tool, then all your comment tools will show at the top. Choose the underline text tool and then use the color picker to make it green. I like to add that to my quick tools so that it's always there, no matter what major toolset I have sleeted at the time. This video should help: https://youtu.be/zpG3kDvmTJ4
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gotmilk commented
Rae, the custom tool panel, like all other existing panels, adds an extra bar which leaves less space for viewing the document. So maybe it helps with not having to switch between many different tools if you customize it well, but it doesn't address the bigger issue of wasted space on the top bar, i.e. large permanent buttons, no ability to rearrange buttons for page navigation, etc. The only portion that allows rearranging of buttons is the Quick tools which always sits on the right side, so that doesn't help especially when viewing DC in half screen.
Besides the stiff and clumsy feel of the bars, they waste vertical space within the bar. If you look at the MS word ribbon and the size of the buttons, you can fit at least two of those buttons for one DC button vertically. Overall the DC menus look and feel like they were made for kids or seniors, not for professionals who need efficiency and productivity.
Also, the menus are not as responsive as other programs. Pressing buttons feels sluggish.
I certainly wouldn't mind having the dockable menus of Photoshop/Illustrator as suggested.
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Rae Benedetto commented
Also would be nice if we could dock "Tools" (really panels of Tools) or not.. like in Photoshop and Illustrator! Come on guys you've got Pros using Acrobat, too. Stop treating us like kids!
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Rae Benedetto commented
Hey, I hate this interface too, but a lot of the problems I see below (searching for tools over and over) can be solved by Creating a Custom Tool Panel (which Acrobat refers to as "Create Custom Tool"). It's really a Panel of Tools which appears on the right hand of the screen. I've done this and I put the tools I use most in that Panel. My complaint is I have to select my "Tool" of Tools every time -- it should just be there by default. And we should be able to adjust font size and choose whether we want icons or not and if so, what size icon.
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Rae Benedetto commented
I could not agree more with this! I was just coming here to say the same thing. Clunky menus that I can't customize. I do 508 tagging for accessibility and I work in Acrobat DC every day, all day long! The Reading Order Tool is too big and bulky. Today I started work on several forms, using the Forms Panel a lot -- I can't widen it. I can't make the font smaller, so I can't see anything !!! Obviously this is not designed by the same people who do Illustrator and Photoshop -- their menus are so small I can't barely read them. Can we have customizable font sizes in all Adobe product menus PLEASE?
Plus, I make a customized Tool Panel with the tools I use all the time. Why oh why can't I make this be the "default" always there Tool Panel ? So let's say I click "the Edit text tool." The Edit panel opens up. I'm done, I close it. No tools. Why can't my customized Tool Panel just be there. Instead, every time, I have to go to Tools and click on my Tool Panel. It gets to be a real pain and time waster when someone uses the product intensively like I do.
Thanks!
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Lisa commented
Adobe needs to suck it up, admit they made a huge mistake with this version, and fix it.
Otherwise, at least on my personal computer at home, I will be seeking other pdf viewing software that is more user friendly. And when I change jobs, I will be recommending a different software selection there, too.
Message boards are great, but only if we are being heard. Adobe isn't the only software company out there. -
Dominic Marlow commented
I totally agree with this, and I was actually logging onto this system in order to make this exact suggestion. The Tabs for multiple documents should have priority space over the "Help", "Feedback", "Login Name", "Home", and "Tools" buttons.
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dex commented
Is anyone surprised that most suggestions on this feedback forum are about the clunky, wasteful, and very user-unfriendly toolbars we've had to live with for a looooong long time? I pretty much agree with all the suggestions - I hate the large buttons, half of which I don’t even use, and can’t be removed.
We need more customization. We need a toolbar that's made with productivity and efficiency in mind. Need smaller buttons, which we can move around. We need a fully customizeable ribbon!
Take M$ Word for example - you can create a whole new ribbon tab and fill it with anything you can think of, and you can also hide it when not in use. Not to mention the extra quick access bar, which you can also hide at will.
Think about it - if a ****** company like M$ was able to create this almost 8 years ago (and even before then the Office menus were already pretty customizeable), why can't Adobe give us something a little more functional than a few large static buttons that are wasting space? -
Anonymous commented
I agree with Dex. I need to be able to view pdfs on multiple windows, across 2 screens. With the current version, I have to print everything out so that I can compare documents. PIA, a real time waster, and paper and toner waster. Please do something about all of these issues. Having a comment board doesn't help, if Adobe doesn't rectify these major issues. They are not merely annoyances, but truly hinder productivity.
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dex commented
100% agree with the OP. This has been one of my biggest annoyances with DC.
I view most PDfs in half screen. When I do that, almost half of the tools menu space is overtaken by those HUUGE buttons 'Home, Tools, Documents', and the others on the right side. It's ridiculous.Here's something else. If I enable tabs in Acrobat, then the pdf tabs replace the quick tools next to the Home/Tools/Document bar, and the quick tools are then moved to a separate bar under the tabs. In that case I can use a LOT more tools. The problems with that is that I don't want to use tabs, I just want to view PDFs in separate Acrobat windows, and still have the full tools bar.
I NEVER use the Home, Document, or Sign In buttons. Please make the menu customizable so we can shape it to our taste.
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David Davies commented
Anonymous: Where have you been?
For a halfway measure it has always been possible to dock the annoying window into the toolbar.
And the wast of space which is the Page Controls has been addressed and fixed. It was sorted in an upgrade some few months ago. (It was one of the first things I and many others complained about.)
Firstly make sure your Acrobat is up to date, then go to the VIEW > SHOW/HIDE > PAGE CONTROLS > HIDE PAGE CONTROLS
The page controls will now disappear completely until you choose to SHOW them. This gives you more room to get your chosen items in Quick Tools to stay in sight.
Dave
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Anonymous commented
Agree.
The most irritating things about Acrobat DC to me are the popup toolbar that appears when you move to the bottom of a page. This stays up too long. While trying to crop the page, This makes it impossible to see objects near the bottom of the page which are often obscured by the toolbar.
The other major irritant is that when I create a custom action and give it an icon, I can't usually see it on the quick toolbar as Acrobat has populated most of the available space on/near the quick toolbar. I would suggest that Adobe uses smaller icons, allows a user to position a toolbar anywhere on the screen, and allow the user to decide which icons are displayed.
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Sandy Campbell commented
I've installed DC three times, each time thinking that maybe I was being too harsh in my assessment. But each time I reinstalled XI. This is not because I love XI, but because I find DC completely unusable. As far as I can tell, it does nothing that XI can't do better and easier, except maybe touch support. I have DC on my iPhone because I have no choice, and I never use it for more than viewing a PDF (and it doesn't show spreads). For years I had hoped that Adobe would come out with an Acrobat CC. Acrobat was always the ugly duckling of the Acrobat family, and it would have been so easy to make it better. The Creative Cloud apps, especially InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator, are fully customizable and fairly uniform in how they look and perform. But then DC came out in 2015, and it hasn't improved one bit in three years. No designers and clients that I work with will touch it. My clients make heavy use of commenting on PDFs made from InDesign documents. XI isn't perfect - the post-it notes are often misaligned and long blocks of replacement text cause the screen to blink - but DC is far worse. There is often NO way in DC of knowing exactly what a comment is referring to. I can't risk upsetting my clients just to make Adobe happy. Acrobat DC is still polluting my Creative Cloud menu bar app. It is in constant need of "updating" even though it is not even installed. I would get rid of it if I could, but like all things DC, that is impossible.
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Anonymous commented
David D. comments: "Anyone remember the infamous Illustrator 7? - Adobe stuffed up a very good product so completely by not asking the customer what they use it for, that they had to rush version 8 out to stop a mass exodus to Freehand and CorelDraw."
I own all three of the above-named programs, but still vastly prefer Freehand - and indeed still use it almost exclusively. Likewise Acrobat Pro XI over DC. FWIIW....
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David Davies commented
At least there is now this option for contacting them, and Adobe say this issue is UNDER REVIEW - so at least that is an improvement.
They have already addressed a number of the worst problems - at least you can now have some of your custom tools visible.
Unfortunately this has been one of those updates where Adobe forgets to ask the users what they actually do with the product, and so they let some clueless nerd make a pretty interface. (Anyone remember the infamous Illustrator 7? - Adobe stuffed up a very good product so completely by not asking the customer what they use it for, that they had to rush version 8 out to stop a mass exodus to Freehand and CorelDraw).
With Acrobat there are a number of very different uses - which have very little common ground in the tool sets they use.
I use it as "the Industry Standard software" for moving artwork files across the Printing industry and I have no interest in Notes, Signatures, and all that. However there are others whose use it entirely for edits and approvals who have no interest in the tools I need.
Adobe made the Schoolboy error of trying to create a "one size fits all" interface and forgot that the prime feature of Acrobat is customisation to a number of very different uses. -
John Livingston commented
Yes, I did create new sets of Custom Tools on my Mac AND PC. But Acrobat Pro DC insists on running some "built-in" tools in that bar. So unless my laptops are docked to an external display, I can only see about half the quick tools I created. The button size (Compared with Acrobat Pro XI) also limits what I can load into Quick Tools. Next time Adobe runs an update, could you please make the buttons smaller. Hard to meet employers' LEAN targets when the software interface is not efficiently designed.