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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.

857 votes

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

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  • Beatriz Infante commented  ·   ·  Report

    New interface is TERRIBLE TERRIBLE TERRIBLE. I got a new PC and found new interface unusable. I had gone as far as downloading the 2016 32-bit version, when I discovered on Reddit that one could disable the new interface.

  • Mags commented  ·   ·  Report

    Everything has been said, loud and clear. I disabled the new interface as totally ridiculous!

  • Ted Converse commented  ·   ·  Report

    Did an executive's kid design this? Why all the cover up and hush hush?!

  • InstyButte Typesetting2 commented  ·   ·  Report

    I think that it's interesting that some requests with just one or two votes are Under Review, while Adobe is still completely ignoring all of this. 738 votes. Not a peep. Like Peter G says, "Sorry you don't like it. You'll just have to get used to it."

  • Peter G commented  ·   ·  Report

    ... The response from the Company is, "Sorry you don't like it. You'll just have to get used to it."

    This is a ****** customer-relationship attitude.

  • Peter G commented  ·   ·  Report

    Is THIS what happens when you 'outsource' software development???

    Your new version is a POS.
    Your new version is a POS. Why do you guys come up with this ****? I can't find ANYTHING. The old version was fine. Please FIRE the lead developer of this new version.

    "You will own nothing and be happy"

  • Mr Andrew Murray Wells commented  ·   ·  Report

    This is such a **** show, great lesson on how to take a great product and make it completely unusable. I'm moving to something that works. so very disappointed and someone should be considering a class action to recover the cost to business

  • Michael Wong commented  ·   ·  Report

    They are good at what they do, but not like this. I would have found an alternative if not too lazy to learn another application, again.
    Honestly, I would not feel sorry if people start pirating adobe's app now.

  • Robin Surface commented  ·   ·  Report

    I've commented on here multiple times, but just felt the need to vent about this horrible update yet again. There's not a day that goes by that I don't curse Acrobat at least 10 times a day because it's making my job so difficult for no reason. It's been forever and no response from Acrobat tells me they just don't care. If I wasn't so tied to this program on multiple levels, I would have ditched it months ago.

  • leila commented  ·   ·  Report

    Agree with all of the previous comments, so the only thing I have to add, is, if you are going to continually change the interface, then at the VERY least, have an instructional video that shows all of the functions that were there before.

  • Dave Gram commented  ·   ·  Report

    People that rely on a product for daily work productivity don’t want drastic changes to the GUI that remove and hides features while putting floating icons on top of the work. Get rid of this new interface!

  • InstyButte Typesetting2 commented  ·   ·  Report

    I wonder if the CEO's kid came up with this. No one with actual UI experience could have created this abomination. Every day, I get more clients asking me how to use Acrobat Pro, and I keep telling them to Disable New Acrobat. Then they ask me why it was changed into something so utterly useless in the first place. Maybe Adobe wants out of the market?

  • Lifeng Kang commented  ·   ·  Report

    The new Acrobat interface is complete failure and messed up everything, wasting my time looking for the most basic functions such as 'scroll', 'take a snap shot', or 'insert pages'....

    Whoever has made this decision should be condemned !!!
    What kind of mad person could have done this?

  • Michael commented  ·   ·  Report

    A few days i tried again to communicate with Adobe about a topic concerning this topic:

    The quicktool bar does not exist anymore in the new layout.

    I have programmed many many icons gor stamps and acrobat dialogs for customers.

    In the new layout you can still use your code but the icons move to the floating bar on the left and they all look like pink lego bricks. So you have to use the mouse to hoover over to see what function is connected to which icon
    .

    So it took me 3 calls to find a halfway technical guy who was willing to understand the subject. And after having sent screenshots and a remote session.

    Additional adobe doesn‘t know their own program. The guy told me that they are not responsible for third party plugins.

    I could convince him that we are not talking about 3rd party plugins but about
    something being programmed with acrobat java script!!!

    the answer was: please write everything down on the user voice webpage.

    We cannot do anything more from here.

    Thank you very much

    That is so annoying how adobe treats their customers.

  • Ted Converse commented  ·   ·  Report

    @Luke, no, no-one is listening. This website is a joke.

    Why have a "user-voice" website if you aren't going to monitor it?! Oh, I know, so everyone can talk about how much your products suck, and advise everyone about competitor alternatives so we can all migrate away from your ****** company.

  • Eish commented  ·   ·  Report

    We spend a small fortune on annual Acrobat licensing to achieve basic business goals. It shouldn't take half a day to unsuccessfully insert a signature from an image file. Make a product that is functional or your customers will walk. We will not be renewing this year.

  • Robin Surface commented  ·   ·  Report

    Very well written and points out all the issues and irritations I came here to voice. Apparently, Adobe doesn't care AT ALL about any of this because it's nearly Aug. 2024 and they still haven't fixed any of this.

  • Denny Esford commented  ·   ·  Report

    No need Chris. Just disappointed that it fell on deaf ears.

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