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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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  • Eddie Deighton commented  ·   ·  Report

    Is anybody on LinkedIn and can send Dorelle Rabinowitz (Senior Director of Design, Acrobat at Adobe) a link to this thread? I can’t see any reference to her actually posting on this forum herself. She’s either being kept in the dark regarding how unhappy we are on this thread or she doesn’t care and thinks they’re making the right design decisions.

  • Val Wiley commented  ·   ·  Report

    I must state that i really do not like the new version. We should be able to decide if we want the tools horizontally or vertically. I find this very annoying and it has become a stumbling block for me. I spend most of my work day in Adobe so this has really slowed me down. I went back to the classic but some of the editing functions work only part of the time. Please enable the feature to move tools to the upper bar and do it soon

  • Tom Bodmer commented  ·   ·  Report

    Either keep the page and bookmark navigation on the left, let us CHOOSE what side it is on, or sod off. Seriously. In a world where many people have multiple monitors, being able to customize what side of your screen your UI elements are on is CRUCIAL to maintaining a happy workflow.

  • db commented  ·   ·  Report

    We are using PDF Studio Pro at the moment. OK, but as a Mac user with no access to Bluebeam, this is the best alternate we've found.

  • Bevi Chagnon | PubCom.com commented  ·   ·  Report

    Affinity has great alternative programs for creating content, but as of yet, it doesn't have anything to compete with Acrobat Pro.

    There are literally hundreds of other PDF reading/editing programs on the market today, and some might have enough tools for your particular tasks.

    But if you're in these fields, so far you're stuck with Adobe Acrobat:
    — Printing and graphic arts
    — Accessible PDFs and documents
    — Advanced document management

    Here's a fairly good, comprehensive list of PDF reading and editing software: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PDF_software

  • Nicholas TZ commented  ·   ·  Report

    "Affinity" huh? Thanks for the suggestion! I'll start using that!

  • Deb Schroeder commented  ·   ·  Report

    Why, when trying to open a PDF is it asking me to use a paid version. I have uninstalled and re-installed Adobe Acrobat reader but it just won't open these PDF's. If I use firefox it can open them. Please go back to older version, this is so very annoying that I can't open my PDF's as I used to be able to. After having a chat to Adobe was told Reader was not supported.

  • OMan commented  ·   ·  Report

    Interesting you can check out the profiles of the bots used in that recently locked Acrobat thread, some of them are being used multiple times on different product in the Adobe comunity, some have profile pictures, one compliments an Adobe employee's post and then offers some technical guidance. I wonder if they are trying to get some of them past the "community beginner" status. If I had time I would make fun of all the posts, but alas, I am only human....

  • Kathleen Mattson commented  ·   ·  Report

    Dear Adobe Employees,

    Please take note that there is a huge number of professionals who very strongly dislike the new Adobe Acrobat UI. These users not only are very unhappy with the UI, they also are frustrated (and some are angry) that our comments about it appear to be unheard.

    That this Bug is marked as "implemented" is an error and we ask that you remove that status. The edits made in no way address the concerns of your users.

    Finally, note that many of the users who have expressed intense dismay with the UI are professional users, By this I mean they are professionals who must use the program in the course of their jobs, in some cases extensively, all day, every day. These are not passing whims of casual users -- these are your core users. Many of these users now spend their spare time looking for alternatives to Adobe Acrobat because the Adobe Corporation seems to be ignoring our input and have destroyed the UI.

    Please -- can you address these concerns, fix the UI, and save us from having to look for an alternative?

  • Robbie Patterson commented  ·   ·  Report

    They have locked that thread now that it’s started to get flooded by actual Acrobat users. I honestly feel for the employees posting this stuff.. the engineers creating this rot economy… they MUST have thought it would be their dream to work on influencing photoshop and acrobat, and instead they are working on the dying embers of a unsustainable legacy that Affinity and the likes will soon wipe out.

  • OMan commented  ·   ·  Report

    sorry DB didn't mean to steal your thunder, I was having too much fun procrastinating and making fun of the bots

  • db commented  ·   ·  Report

    Looks like some humans have beat me to it!

  • David Peters commented  ·   ·  Report

    community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-discussions/meet-acrobat-studio/td-p/15465617

    I can't be-fuскing-lieve this shιt. AdoЬe is straight-up deploying two dozen robot bots to spam enthusiastic, fake-аss comments under their own goddаmn article.

    We need to screenshot every last one of these bullshιt endorsements and expose this сrap for what it is.

    This is the final nail in the coffin for that greedy pile of corporate horseѕhit; AdoЬe deserves to be obliterated for pulling this manipulative stunt. Let's bury these basтards.

    bit.ly/Acrobat-Uservoice-Interface
    bit.ly/TheSlowDeathOfAdobe
    bit.ly/HorribleAcrobatDC-2015

  • Kathleen Mattson commented  ·   ·  Report

    I get so annoyed every time I see that Adobe claims that this is "implemented"!

    I've replaced Illustrator and Photoshop with Affinity apps, but I am still looking for the right PDF app so I can replace Acrobat. My main need is to be able to work with comments that others have added. Any suggestions?

  • Kristine Griba commented  ·   ·  Report

    Hey db - Good idea! I say go for it! 👍🏻👍🏻 Then we can all go over there and 'like' it for you :)

  • db commented  ·   ·  Report

    Dying to drop a link to this thread on that page.

  • Charlie commented  ·   ·  Report

    You can probably break a few of them with a simple "ignore all previous instructions".
    Looks like a lot of Bots there.

  • Robbie Patterson commented  ·   ·  Report

    How many real life human beings in a row can use the phrase “this is a game changer” before things look as fishy as the app they are so in awe of?

  • Kristine Griba commented  ·   ·  Report

    Wish I could 'like' your comment, Philip... for all the 'collaboration' Adobe is espousing lately, we have none here in this forum.... can't even like someone's post let alone reply directly to it.

  • Philip Taylor commented  ·   ·  Report

    Kristine, I have read the comments to which you refer, and I am staggered by the similarity between them and the "reviews" which a well-known web authoring system came up with when I asked it to use AI to design a new web site for a soon-to-open Vietnamese coffee shop recently. Of course, we all know that Adobe would never sink to the level of getting positive reviews contributed by AI bots, but the similarity is nonetheless remarkable.

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