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

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  • Murray commented  ·   ·  Report

    @Adobe, at least reinstate the "Disable New Acrobat" option on the View menu and see how many people Google that and use it. That should be all the feedback that you need.

  • David Peters commented  ·   ·  Report

    Sorry, none of this is going to happen. Adobe will loose the professional market completely before they realize how utterly they screwed up for decades.

    ALL of these features, and truckloads more, are already present in PDF-XChange Editor.

  • Soren commented  ·   ·  Report

    To say it in the words of a famous meme: Your UI is bad and you should feel bad.

  • John Herzog commented  ·   ·  Report

    To be fair, it is only the #1 in all topics for Acrobat.

  • InstyButte Typesetting2 commented  ·   ·  Report

    To be fair, not that many people have voted or commented. I mean, it's only the #1 UI topic for Acrobat.
    Aaron King - Yes, that quick actions toolbar is a pointless piece of garbage. I use the old interface because of it.

  • Lorenzo Novara commented  ·   ·  Report

    I happily cancelled my Adobe Creative Cloud All Apps plan. I will never install Adobe software anymore, no matter what.

  • Aaron King commented  ·   ·  Report

    I genuinely cannot believe there is still no option to dock or disable the quick actions toolbar despite the universal disdain for it. I haven’t met a single person who likes or asked for a floating menu bar that obscures the document. Unreal.

  • Ted Converse commented  ·   ·  Report

    LOL, people are openly talking about cancelling Adobe, and actively discussing competitor software options on Adobe's so called user voice community. And no responses from Adobe. ZERO. Unreal. FU Adobe.

  • AR commented  ·   ·  Report

    Kevin. I cancelled Acrobat months ago.

  • Kevin commented  ·   ·  Report

    Adobe support told me to post my comment on this site, so I did. I have seen numerous comments on here, yet, no replies from Adobe and no software fixes either. I cancelled my Adobe subscription, not that one cancellation is going to make a difference to Adobe. When I cancelled, Adobe offered a new 1 year discount that I declined. I just bought a new pc that offered Foxit PDF Editor pro for 1/2 price. So I am switching to Foxit.

  • John Wirth commented  ·   ·  Report

    The new interface is an incredible downgrade in efficiency and usefulness.

  • Russel Jr. Julius commented  ·   ·  Report

    The new UI is a pain in the a$$. It took me nearly an hour to figure out how to disable OCR. Almost all tutorials online uses the old UI and this new ui is just horrible.

  • emtee commented  ·   ·  Report

    Adobe seems to have abandoned its users - but still taking megabucks (well, it is for me as someone living on a pension and use the Creative Suite for a limited number of community jobs).

    For my own workflow, which I've been using for a very long time, I've tried alternatives but, other than the much-superior (and free) DaVinci Resolve for video editing (although I still have some video projects I don't want to throw away), I haven't found anything to replace Photoshop (I use a lot of actions), Acrobat, InDesign or Illustrator (although the last two have largely moved to an old version of CorelDraw)

  • Kim Gall commented  ·   ·  Report

    This is the worst "update" that Adobe has done in all the years I've used it. Please fix the toolbar on the left side issue and the bookmarks on the right issue. We should be given the option and ability to move and customize so that it works best for our needs.

  • Thomas Cincotta commented  ·   ·  Report

    Just wasted far too much time with simple Adobe Reader documents trying to permanently prevent bookmark sidebar from opening on right side of document. Check forums tried to follow instructions and none worked. Every time document was opened out popped the bookmarks sidebar. I was able to eliminate the toolbar sidebar on the left side going through Preferences menus. Finally found a web posting saying Adobe had upgraded the software for the Reader after HP laptop restart which indicated it was doing updates so went to control panel settings for applications and drove the updates to Adobe Reader but the problem still ..existed. web comments suggested complete reversion back to the original Adobe Reader application. Now I finally I'm able to park both the tools and the bookmarks menu so they stay hidden when I reopen a PDF document. Please fix this problem if you're going to drive us to an update because I honestly wasted more than an hour going back and forth trying to understand what I was doing wrong and why none of the hints on the forums helped. This is an excusable. Test this before you put it out and you would have seen it.

  • Michael Wong commented  ·   ·  Report

    It's not just Acrobat, they are doing the same to Photoshop also. Accessing menu items (Alt+...) are broken. And loading is slower than ever.

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