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Acrobat for Windows and Mac: User Interface

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Ditch the 2023 User Interface in Acrobat

There are so many shortcomings and problems with the new 2023 GUI interface. Here are just a few:

  1. Swapping left and right-hand panels for no reason. This does not improve anything for users. It just forces users to change everything about how they work in Acrobat every workday.

  2. Functions are indicated by random icons. In the 90s, we learned that icons in software and websites don't work across different populations. Users have a difficult time figuring out what the heck they mean. Give text labels.

  3. The left panel is permanently positioned on the screen and obscures part of the document below. Seriously Adobe, WTF.

  4. The entire menu/panel system can't be customized, moved, or docked. Another WTF.

  5. Hamburger menus (those obscure 3 horizontal lines) are used on mobile interfaces to collapse menus. They are totally unnecessary and inappropriate on desktop interfaces — where working people spend most of their time working. Give people real menus with real names. "Menu" is not accurate, either. What is the name of the other menu to the right? Menu 2? Cheeseburger Menu?

  6. The new interface is inaccessible for those with disabilities who use assistive technologies, especially screen reader users. Adobe has seriously violated its VPAT with governments and corporations worldwide who are required by law to provide accessible work environments and tools.

  7. Grey on Grey is not an accessible color scheme. Can't tell if some icons are active or disabled. Those with low vision can't discern the icons.

  8. Digital signatures, Document Cloud (where Adobe stores your files by default), subscriptions, OCR, file creation, file combining, and accessibility all have reported major problems for the past few years...but rather than fix these critical problems, money was instead spent on rearranging the deck chairs on the sinking Titanic.

As long-time PDF consultants, my firm has found that the majority of customers are professionals who use Acrobat for their jobs. These are not "casual" users working on their smartphones. They are using desktops/laptops with full screens, not mobile devices to do their jobs. And they work with PDFs a lot.

They have developed actions and scripts to automate processes on dozens, hundreds, and even thousands of PDF files every day. These industries include print, prepress, graphic design, accessibility & remediation, accessible forms, variable forms, variable printing, data validation, financial institutions (think of all those bank statements every month!), health care, investment and finance, and manufacturing.

Dramatic GUI changes like 2023's completely change how these automated processes work...if they still work at all.

The cost to these industries to correct the now-broken processes — brought on by Adobe's whimsical, untested design idea — is appalling. If I was a major corporation hit by this unnecessary expense, I'd ban Adobe products from my company and look for another PDF vendor.

There are now many reputable competitors to Adobe Acrobat: See:
— https://www.tomsguide.com/best-picks/best-pdf-editors
— https://www.techradar.com/best/pdf-editors
— https://www.pcworld.com/article/407214/best-pdf-editors.html

Calling this Acrobat's "Modern Viewer" is a form of gaslighting Adobe customers. It's not modern at all — 30 years ago, using icons failed in software and web interfaces, and it's failing again with Acrobat 2023. Sometimes retro isn't good, especially retro user interfaces. Please don't attempt to bring back disco, old-fashioned 20 inch TVs, polyester suits, rotary phones and VHS tapes as being "Modern," too.

Ditch this "Modern Viewer" and instead give us a working tool to get our jobs done.

  1. Revert the interface back to what it was.

  2. Fix Acrobat's bugs. There are so many!

  3. And improve the accessibility for those with disabilities (who can't get to the Comments panel, Bookmarks panel, understand what and how much is redacted, make edits or change the content, scale/enlarge the interface, nor sign a PDF).

For those still reading this, users can revert to the old interface for now (August 2023).
— Windows: Hamburger Menu / Disable New Acrobat
— Mac: View Menu / Disable New Acrobat

I have no idea who long Adobe is going to let us revert to the "real" interface.

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Bevi Chagnon | PubCom.com shared this idea  ·   ·  Report…  ·  Admin →

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  • Ashley Calderon commented  ·   ·  Report

    Having this AI junk jammed into my face, popping up while I'm trying to peruse a PDF, is invasive and unwanted. There are no reliable ways to disable it in the "new" version, and I will remove the program entirely if that becomes the only version. Thank god to the people who posted how to revert back to the REAL acrobat version without the AI ****, or the absolutely terrible choices for layouts of tools and toolbars.

  • Grace commented  ·   ·  Report

    Adobe PDF Bookmark/ribbon is like the table of content for the book we are compiling and reading from. As with all English writing, we read from left to right. So it would only make sense to have your table of content on the left side for ease navigation. PLEASE CHANGE IT BACK. This right side bookmark/ribbon and left side toolbar DO NOT WORK

  • peipei Aragorn commented  ·   ·  Report

    In past versions I could dock the Quick Actions Toolbar to the top of the window, but in this version of Acrobat, it hovers in the upper left, sometimes covering art that I need to see when zooming in.

    Let me get this straight:

    It is a new feature of your PDF viewer application to hide part of the document without exception? Is there even a way to move it? I can't figure out a touch taget for that. I simply want to view a PDF, and Reader continues to add more "features" that distract from the baseline of the program.

  • David Peters commented  ·   ·  Report

    How the **** does this issue have an official status of GREEN=IMPLEMENTED?

    Another proof that Adobe does not give a flying **** about their customers.

    Anyway, I'm only here with popcorn to witness this utter tragedy.

    I've stopped using their **** software literally decades ago.

    Here's a growing YouTube Playlist inter alia about the criminal practices of this utterly terrible company:

    https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLZgXIDVbShorxTuODtTnxnrtAVNeGVuo

  • Jake McAdams commented  ·   ·  Report

    I recently purchased a new computer and the Adobe Acrobat Pro 24. The interface is extremely confusing and hard to navigate. What's worse is the tools do not have all the same functionality, specifically the ability to proeprly and easily edit and add text on a document where desired on a document and in the desired format.

  • John Windes commented  ·   ·  Report

    I'm probably a casual user. I use Pro at work but I just tried to download a document to READ ONLY at home and I'm dying because the navigation panel is on the left. WTF already? Took me 20 minutes to figure out how to "disable new Acrobat" or whatever. If you are going to move stuff AT LEAST let us move them back. So annoying.

  • Tria Sam commented  ·   ·  Report

    i wish bookmarks on the left please!!!

  • Jason Roy commented  ·   ·  Report

    The new interface is so horrible to deal with. I was lost on where to find the simple things. I agree that the Classic GUI is the correct gui. Leave the interface options open and stop trying to restrict folks to a view you want.

    The anxiety, frustration and unintelligence I felt for not being able to figure it out is demoralizing. I have been a PC user since forever and even build my own PC's so it is not a user issue.

    Thankfully I found the thread on how to revert back to Classic GUI as I was looking for PDF software alternatives.

  • Petra Bajusova commented  ·   ·  Report

    Hi,

    I can't revert to classic GUI user interface as Disable New Acrobat option is not in Menu (Adobe for Windows).
    Is other way how to revert to classic GUI?

  • Raffaele Merminod commented  ·   ·  Report

    I'm always amazed that people want to simplify interfaces, even though there was no demand for it.
    Simple means that you can find everything you need quickly and intuitively. But ADOBE didn't do that with Acrobat. Did they even test this with users before the rollout? Maybe that's where you have to start, testing it with the people it affects.

  • David Stamm commented  ·   ·  Report

    2025-04-09-03T03:50Z
    I agree with others that the former layout of the interface with the bookmarks panel and other panels on the left is _far_ superior to the current boondoggle. At the very least, facilitate control of the interface to let us users arrange such things the way works best for us.

  • Daniel Berlin commented  ·   ·  Report

    The standard view of Acrobat, with bookmarks/page thumbs on left, navigation and buttons on top, and edit/comment/other options on the right was the correct layout. I don't know anyone who wants to use the modern view/annoying way. Please don't break something that works great for all of us.

  • Egbert Souse commented  ·   ·  Report

    As a long....loooong-time user of Adobe products, I have to say this is one the worst "upgrades" I've experienced. All the critiques are spot-on. Old timers like myself see this as a violation of every best practice for interface design. One example would be having users click multiple times to find the most common tools when they were previously accessed with one click. Efficiency indeed.

    Additionally, why can't the pixel dimensions of a file be available at a glance rather that digging around in print production dialog boxes?

    Seems the inmates are now running the asylum at Adobe.

  • Karin commented  ·   ·  Report

    I'm in agreement with the previous commenters. The "new" interface is awful. And now, if we want to use AI tools, we must use it. Boo, Adobe. I'm a software trainer and I talk to a lot of students (professionals) in the US and Canada and only one person out of all of them likes and uses the new interface, all the rest were happy and relieved to go back to the previous one.

  • Kirsten Wickstrom commented  ·   ·  Report

    This is terrible! I cannot edit, e-sign or do anything else properly in this version! It cut down what I am able to do by about half.

  • Boris Vasiliev commented  ·   ·  Report

    "Implemented · Dec 12, 2024" - is it real?
    Or it is an "Exaggeration"?

  • Lora Cawkins commented  ·   ·  Report

    Don't know who's idea it was to not be able to turn of the "helpful" blue bubbles. THEY ARE NOT HELPFUL AND A TOTAL ANNOYANCE IN MY WORKFLOW!!!!!. I've used the Adobe products from version 1. If I want help with something I will google it.

  • Lora Cawkins commented  ·   ·  Report

    Stop rearranging the tools pallet and put it back on the right.

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