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:
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.
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.
The left panel is permanently positioned on the screen and obscures part of the document below. Seriously Adobe, WTF.
The entire menu/panel system can't be customized, moved, or docked. Another WTF.
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?
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.
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.
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.
Revert the interface back to what it was.
Fix Acrobat's bugs. There are so many!
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.
Bevi Chagnon | PubCom.com
shared this idea
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Olivia Ross commented
I just don't understand why... I knew how to use acrobat before. I was fast and efficient and I could find everything I needed and wanted. Why change it completely and seemingly add nothing new that I would want or need?
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emtee
commented
There are so many problems, I don't really know where to start. It's like you've taken my car overnight and put the steering wheel on the other side, and swapped the brake and accelerator pedals.
There were already a lot of niggly bugs and performance issues in Acrobat Pro that these ought to have been addressed - but to make such a lot of what seem like largely cosmetic changes at the expense of usability seems crass.
I'm just an amateur, and occasional, user of Acrobat Pro (and the rest of the Creative Cloud) for the community and pay a lot for the privilege. If Adobe wants to make changes to an established product, then make things work better internally and not mess around with the UI.
As a psychologist graduate, with some specialism in the psychology of the user-interface, I know that the statement that "you'll get used to it":
(a) is wrong on several cognitive levels [I suggest the Adobe team learn about the persistence of internal cognitive mapping of user functionality]
(b) fails to recognise that many users don't use the software every day, but only as and when necessary - a typical failure of user-empathy within software development, and an arrogant presumption that users CAN gain familiarity because of very regular use
(c) is a kick in the teeth to those of us who have supported Adobe product for decades, and pay for the products without relying on cheap/pirate versions.
I don't believe for one minute that Adobe will listen, and the problem (with lesser impact) has hit other Adobe products to the point where many users are looking elsewhere - I'll save a month's income by stopping my CC account
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David Peters commented
Guys. That's it. This abomination will never be fixed. Even if the user interface were improved or restored (which it won't), the underlying PDF engine is utterly screwed up, full of bugs and unbearably slow, and has been so for a decade.
It's over, move on everybody.
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InstyButte Typesetting2 commented
Instead of adding features and UI alterations that no one asked for, how about fixing and improving core functionality of Acrobat? When I started up Acrobat this morning, I thought I was suffering a stroke. Nothing made sense. Random bits of interface were floating or rearranged. I'm glad I was able to get the old interface back, but Acrobat keeps telling me that the newer version is faster and better. Year. Right. That's why I couldn't use it. Maybe I'm just too **** old...
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db commented
Still totally applicable with the latest release. Your comments are on point to our use group as well. There is another group who has implored adobe to give us back the always visible scroll bar in the page thumbnails. I just don't understand why we are given this forum and common complaints go unheard.
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Silverman Associates commented
Revert the interface back - it took me way too many work hours to figure out to get back to the old interface.
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Tracy Norman commented
The change caught me off guard just as I was working on a clients job. Trying to figure out wtf happened to acrobat took time away from what I should have been doing... working.... As a long time user of adobe products - 30+ years, I don't mind updates if they are features that are helpful - but I don't need a redesign of my workspace. Any changes to the workspace should be an option - not an automatic change.
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Richard Cane
commented
The new interface is a terrible change. I understand incremental improvements, but this is a "toss out everything you know" change. Even when you find a feature, restoring its utility is limited. If support for the "old" interface ends I may cancel all of my subscriptions to AcrobatPro.
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Ted Converse commented
Don't bother posting. Adobe isn't listening. Not one admin response to this. Pathetic.
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Ross Ackerson commented
The new interface is far from productive, took me an hour to get the tools I needed to edit a document. As soon as I found out I can revert to the old interface....DONE. Do not change the productive interface to his nonproductive Modern one, especially by surprise.
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Gerret Swearingen, Attorney commented
USE THIS EVERYONE......YAY! REVERT TO THE OLD ADOBE.....WORKS! https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-discussions/acrobat-2023-how-to-revert-to-classic-gui-user-interface/m-p/14052807
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YOU HAVE COMPLETELY STOPPED MY WORK FLOW! THIS UPDATE IS CLUNKY AT BEST BUT AT WORST A HUGE MISTAKE. WE H A T E WHAT YOU HAVE DONE TO THE PROGRAM AND WILL BE UNINSTALLING THE UPDATE ASAP. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?
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Peter Kernebone commented
It's rubbish. BUt what is really rubbish is that it is forced on to us with no warning and no easy opt out. Just rubbish.
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Jason Greenawalt commented
I run an older version of Windows (8.1), & the new interface freezes the entire app every time I try to use it. I tried uninstalling & reinstalling, but only the newer version was available, & it didn't fix the problem. It took LOTS of searching through support pages to find out that I can simply revert the program to its older form from the upper-left menu. After doing so, it works fine again. The update was both without my knowledge or consent. All I wanted was a WORKING .pdf viewer.
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Wayne Rice commented
If it weren't so bad, I'd think this new interface was some sort of joke to get people to sign into a service to complain about it. This violates a cardinal rule of any process: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
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Ed
commented
The new interface is the less intuitive thing I can ever imagine. Could you explain what is the advantage of moving things around? Did you check with current users? I don't want to spend hours relearning where the new commands are, beside that it look terrible.
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Rob Pfaffmann commented
I had meeting today and acrobat on the Mac crashed just as I was getting ready to present a small slide deck. I ended up opening the file in Mac Preview and it was smooth as butta! What is wrong with the execution of Acrobat code that makes its so jumpy and awkward!
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Heather Davis commented
If it ain't broke... DON'T FIX IT!
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Alejandro Ramírez Pulido commented
This is the most moronic and useless update I've seen in a lifetime and that's coming from someone who had a PC with Windows Vista!
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Peter Bull commented
Please, please, please ditch the 'new interface'. It is an abomination. It is a serious impediment to any kind of interaction with pdfs.