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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Miguel Medalha
commented
@Claude Mundy
Maybe this happened in the way described by (I suppose) Winston Churchill:
A camel is a horse designed by a comittee.
Maybe.
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Claude Mundy
commented
Unfortunately, this new look is a big miss. How did this happen?
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Kristine Griba
commented
My employer has now officially asked me to start researching alternatives for our e-signing needs...
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Kathleen Mattson commented
The new UI is so horrible! Please, Adobe, Please fix this. For starters, not having the bookmarks listing on the left is ridiculous!
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Freeman Helmuth
commented
What @Simon said. Hiding free features and replacing them with paid.
Looking for another editor now -
Miguel Medalha
commented
(@Simon, below) I don't think that we should send hate towards others, because after all we would be hating ourselves. But yes, I partake of your frustration and even some anger, but let's hope that goodwill towards its users and clients prevails at Adobe.
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Simon
commented
The new adobe is horrible, replacing button where free features used to be with premium features and hiding the free features somewhere in the menus.
Hopefully Adobe fails as a company soon and will be replaced with a useable product.
The "Disable new Acrobat" doesn't disable the new acrobat at all, just changes the GUI back, but the free features are still hidden and replaced with premium features.
- Much hate towards the decision makers at adobe, I hope they get their Karma. -
P
commented
If I have to learn a new interface, maybe it's time to learn a new pdf program for the simple things I need to do: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/124.0.1/whatsnew/
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William Jackson
commented
Old way was better.
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Freeman Helmuth
commented
Please please just fix this. This UI update is one of the worst UI updates to an app that I've seen in a long time. And I design UI/UX for software for a living.
Adobe, listen to your users and don't repeat the "new Coke" mistake.
All of Bevi's comments are right. In addition the new UI is so much slower and jerkier with large PDFs.
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Pamela
commented
Still don't have the accessibility remediation "Make Accessible" option to aid in remediating inaccessible PDFs. This is pretty major. Don't make us buy your add-on for what has always been basic functionality.
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outdoors life commented
Impressively unfriendly and useless interface. It appears more and more college people with no ACTUAL GUI experience are revamping interfaces.
The not-modern interface works, its fine. If you want people to try something else provide a "SWITCH TO..." not a switch bad.
If we could take out the upper level management type who approved this stupidity and flog them a bit, perhaps it would serve as a lesson for others to actually think about workflows etc. -
Tae commented
I second everything Bevi Chagnon said. Adobe is key for many professional users. We prefer the software for functionality, not for cutesy GUI interfaces.
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Swerving Lemon commented
Whether the new or the old - for someone who just needs a viewer, Adobe disrespects it's users with it's attention-thirsty toolbar interface wasting precious screen area to advertise a feature set that I'll never use. Moving the index and bookmarks to the right was the last straw for me. The moment they remove the "disable new acrobat" function, I'll have to switch to simply viewing them in chrome or something.
My entire technical library is in PDF, and between version changes, I never know whether acrobat is going to let me see the indices or not. That's a feature I'd like fixed, not this pointless rearrangement of the interface. -
Michael W Haney commented
The modern view is not nearly as useful/easy to use as the old interface. Much less intuitive, and multiple key strokes. Number one need is zooming in/out, full page.
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luke burton commented
Im sorry everyone, but Adobe to not give a f_ck about us. Its been like that ever since they introduced this Creative Cloud BS. If youre on a Mac, set up time machine... it has saved me many times to revert back to an older version of an Adobe product. Ive been designing for twenty years and the software is ten times as worse now, than when I started. Apple and Adobe have lost their way, but it doesnt matter because they sell toys to children now and make a lot of $... the product doesnt matter anymore
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Mark Schmidt commented
I purchased Adobe Acrobat Pro as I thought that it would be the same in terms of ease of interface, with the ability to do more, and I was truly disappointed.
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I like the old interface whereas everything was clearly visible including the page numbers, zoom, etc. Why ruin a good thing?
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Michael May commented
As a minimum, install an option to configure the layout, which is hopeless worse
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Adam Turner commented
Acrobat, do not on any account make this Acrobat update mandatory. It is an abortion.
You used to be a bad company. Now you are TERRIBLE.
As an example, my Adobe Creative Cloud user id and pw FAILED when logging on here (yes I checked them, three times.) That shows how utterly useless your relentless greedy pursuit of quarterly earnings growth has made you--you can’t even get logons to your own forums working.
Your 'enhancements,' 'upgrades' and so forth are consistently poor, and not infrequently awful.
You have an effective monopoly, be content with that. Just get your products working, then LEAVE THEM ALONE. For ever. So we, your PAYING CUSTOMERS can get on with our work, meet our deadlines and feed our families.
STOP ABUSING US by co-opting us as an unpaid test department. Abandon SaaS, revert to single one-off payments for your software, and abandon your useless destructive enhancement process in the constant greedy pursuit of increased earnings.
Like your software, it’s not working anymore.