Skip to content
← Acrobat for Windows and Mac

Feature request / Bug report

Acrobat for Windows and Mac: Other

Categories

JUMP TO ANOTHER FORUM

(thinking…)

Give option to make Hand Tool the default option instead of the Select Tool

The Select Tool is the default tool. I never use it and have never seen a need to use it. It makes the screen turn blue and wants to select things instead of letting me drag and move around the page to review large documents. I always have to stop what I'm doing and switch to the hand tool. I am opening and managing easily over 100 PDFs a day and having to switch at every new document is frustrating and time consuming. Adding this as an option would save so much time for users that need this as their default setting.

5 votes

We're glad you're here

Please sign in to leave feedback
Signed in as (Sign out)
Close
Close

We’ll send you updates on this idea

Anonymous shared this idea  ·   ·  Report…  ·  Admin →
How important is this to you?

We're glad you're here

Please sign in to leave feedback
Signed in as (Sign out)
Close
Close
Resolved  ·  digvijay singh bisht responded  · 

You can make the hand tool the default option by trying:
1)Look under Preferences> Acessibility
2)Uncheck "Always display the keyboard selection
3)Then select the Hand Tool.
4)Close the program
5)The Hand tool will now be default

We're glad you're here

Please sign in to leave feedback
Signed in as (Sign out)
Close
Close
Submitting...
An error occurred while saving the comment
  • Andy Horn commented  ·   ·  Report

    Where is the pan function? The little hand?

  • nader commented  ·   ·  Report

    Masud Ahmed Thank you friend. Finally someone with an accurate and correct answer.

  • Tyler Vass commented  ·   ·  Report

    To the gentleman who posted the directions on how to edit the tool with the registry editor, THANK YOU. I've toggled nearly every setting in preferences related to the selection tool and nothing helped, but editing the default selection in the registry editor finally worked.

  • Anonymous commented  ·   ·  Report

    What worked for me is to go to Preference>General and check box Make Select tool select images before text. Click Ok. Restart Adobe. Hopefully that'll help someone :-)

  • Anonymous commented  ·   ·  Report

    Registry edit works. Tested on windows 11 Acrobat DC version 2022.001.20169.0

    Open the Registry Editor -->

    regedit.exe

    Browse to the relevant key -->

    Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Acrobat Acrobat\DC\Selection

    Edit the appropriate value -->

    Change the data of aDefaultSelect to Hand.

    Change the data of bShowKeyboardSelectionCursor to 0

  • Masud Ahmed commented  ·   ·  Report

    Hand tool and selection tool is related to touch mode settings.

    When the program detects that the user is using a touch screen then it selects hand tool. so that your hand can be used as usual way.
    But when it detects that , there is no touch input/display connected then it selects selection tool (cursor) for using with mouse.

    So you need to set touch mode option to >Always. Thus the program will always presume that the user is in touch mode. And give you the hand tool as default.

    To make hand tool default ,
    Go to : Edit > Preferences > General >Touch Mode > Always

  • Alex Praveen commented  ·   ·  Report

    The Hand tool is f**king annoying.. and to use the "Selection tool" as default - jus do the inverse of the above steps:

    1)Look under Preferences --> Acessibility
    2) Check "Always display the keyboard selection
    3) Now Goto Preferences --> General and Uncheck all the 3 options that starts with "Make Hand tool...."
    4)Close the program and restart it again
    5)The Selection tool will now be default

  • Iraklis Albantis commented  ·   ·  Report

    **** this stupid theory DOES NOT WORK
    100 person said 100 different stupidities !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • Jim Menefee commented  ·   ·  Report

    Default tool cannot be changed in this new update version of Pro DC. I have read all forums and Adobe's own steps but nothing works. The Select Tool remains default, and before Christmas the Hand Tool had been the default upon opening. This is quite annoying. Is there a patch or should a reinstall correct this glitch?

  • Tom C commented  ·   ·  Report

    This solution does not work in version 2021.011.20039

  • Anonymous commented  ·   ·  Report

    This does not work in V 2020.012.20048. What is solution for most recent version?