I am a book editor and review thousands of PDF pages per week. I use Acrobat Pro to annotate corrections for designers and authors. After reading the negative comments, I was determined to give the new UI a try. I have used it for two days now and gotten used to some of the quirks. I've even customized my toolbar as much as I can. I've also searched the Web for shortcuts to make things easier. (I love shortcuts.) However, there are still some things that I need and use every day that you seem to have gotten rid of or made more difficult.

1. I would like to be able to fully customize my tool bar to have only the things I use. Right now, for example, the highlight tool is there by default, which is great, but clicking on the highlighter icon doesn't give me the highlighter tool. It opens the option of three items under the highlighting tool, from which I then have to click highlight again. I tried to add just the highlighter tool to my toolbar, but it is grayed out and unavailable. This new way is an added step for me. When I have a hundred highlights in a single PDF, that's a lot of extra time and annoyance.
2. I would like to be able to dock that toolbar above my workspace. I hate the floating toolbar. It needs to be docked so it doesn't interfere with my work.
3. I really miss typing to insert text. In the old UI, I could place my cursor (as long as the Comments Tools were open) and just start typing to insert text. Now I have to place my cursor, click the icon for insert text, and then type my new text. You've again added an extra step for me, which is annoying and time consuming when you enter as much new text as I do.
4. Please stop blowing sunshine up our skirts and selling this as "more intuitive." It isn't. How is it intuitive to have highlight, underline, and strikethrough all under the same icon? From what I can see, you've changed the desktop version to match the online version. If that is really what you were going for, then say that. We aren't idiots. You can sell us that **** about it being intuitive and making our work easier all you want, but we, the end users, can see that isn't the case.

I really did try to make the new UI work for me since I know, eventually, you will force us all to use it, but I think I will be switching back to the other one for as long as possible. It just makes my job easier.

The new interface is awful! ditto no warning, no ads, thank goodness you can revert to the old - why change it!!!

The new interface is extremely frustrating, I can't even describe how much I hate it. Everything is in the way. Nothing is visually intuitive. Please do not make me use the new version.

Unbelievable. Just unbelievable, that in 2023, after some 70 years of the IT industry building experience in designing user interfaces, Adobe can implement a change like this, without any warning to users of their most widespread application.
No foreshadowing email: "We're about to make some changes to Acrobat...".
No consultation on first load: "Would you like to try the new interface?".
Just dump the user into an interface so unfamiliar that my first reaction was "bugger, Acrobat has crapped itself again and lost all my customisations" (which was fairly accurate, as it turned out).
Not even a pop-up: "We've updated the interface, here's how to go back to the old one if you don't know where the **** anything is...".
Well done Adobe for a momentous face plant of an update.

Ditto to all previous comments. The change from version 9 was frustrating enough but this new UI is a disaster! Adobe is broken for me unless I can figure out how to quickly access all the tools that I frequently use. Mind boggling! Is Adobe trying to drive us away?

Still no comments or apparent interest from Adobe employees. I think a sadist designed the new interface. I haven't heard from a single person that thinks the new interface is an improvement. All my coworkers were freaking out until we figured out how to get the old interface back. For now. We're stuck having to pay for the full CC licenses, but we probably won't be using Acrobat much longer (once the new interface becomes absolute), so I wonder if Adobe will give us a discount, seeing as how we'll have to go to a third party pdf authoring solution.

Car manufacturers don't sneak into my sedan in the middle of the night and move the gas pedal to a different place, then tell me they did me a favor.

The new interface makes the features I use most harder to use. More clicks. More sweeps of the mouse. I edit and share projects all the time, please don't tell me this is better. Don't tell me I need to try harder and learn.

I like the product I bought from you, that's why I bought it. Don't change the thing I bought without asking me, please.

GAG!!! The latest is a complete boondogle! Comments entered to a document under review end up repeating on multiple random pages . . . Tools that I used to use regularly are nowhere to be found, and Adobe offers no "search" function to learn where the heck they hid the tools.... What LUNACY.

Totally agree.

The same issues have arisen with other GUI changes to other applications (not Adobe product) that were not necessary.

If it's not broken...

Improving functionality, absolutely. But the new GUI means productivity is affected. It's not just "change taking time to get accustomed to" the frequently used tools and layout are now more complicated to access just for a minimalist workspace.

I don't put my pen in the drawer every time i stop writing with it. It's on the desk at hand so it's efficient to work. I put the pen away to keep the desk tidy at the end of the day!

Don't mess about with the UI on a product used by commercial users. I also have to use "OLD MS Outlook" for the same reason.

I agree with the other users. This "new" version is counterintuitive and disruptive to our productivity. It distracts from the documents we are working with and provides no additional assistance. Simple works.

I like the old interface and wish Adobe would leave as is. I prefer the review/editing toolbar ribbon to run across the top of the screen, not along the side. It slows me down when I have to go and select from that new minimal side toolbar; it's so much easier to just select what you need from the top ribbon where every tool is visible. I also like having the file, edit and view sections separate and visible as well. If the new interface is inevitable, then definitely include an option to move the toolbar along the top before completely shutting down the old interface. Thank goodness we're still able to disable the new one.

I just realized that this is like a h o s t a g e situation, and Adobe is hoping we experience Stockholm Syndrome. I bet they get rid of the option for the old interface soon, and just sit back and wait for us to numbly acquiesce to their demands. Who knows where this will end? Changing Photoshop's interface? Making Illustrator into a clown show? At least Acrobat now crashes every time I open a pdf. It recovers, sure, but why does it crash each time? Is this a stability improvement, to go along with the interface improvement? Buckle up, buttercup!

I couldn't agree more with all these comments. My Acrobat switched on me yesterday with no input from me and had me tearing my hair out. I am a professional and suddenly they wanted me to do kindergarten, or lord only knows what. If their idea is to dumb everything down to the point that it is unusable, they are going to go the way of QuarkXpress! Luckily I discovered I could go back tot he old version, but , my goodness, what a waste of time!

The new Acrobat interface is absolutely awful!!! Thankfully, there was a way to convert back to the previous interface that everyone (who is paying for this extremely expensive system!!!) has become accustomed to using. Please DO NOT do a wholesale surprise change ever again!

Also created an account for the only purpose to give this article a shout out!
Thank you Bevi, you express all my frustration in the proper constructive frame.

Nope. Using the old interface for as long as possible. Then heading elsewhere.

The new format is very difficult to get used to. Even on web pages, bookmarks are laid out on the left side of a page. Moving bookmarks to the right side makes no sense at all.

I created an account for the sole purpose of expressing how terrible this is.
Why, why, why?

Excellent article! I cannot believe that Adobe needs a community to tell them how to better manage their software programming. Thank you for your excellent article and fact-based critisism of Adobe's failing Acrobat software program.

Yours truly,

Frustrated Decades Acrobat user for Business and Work

This new "experience" is TERRIBLE!!! I have had to change our office computers back to the old style because it was hard for any of the staff to find anything or get it to work correctly when on deadlines!