Viewing PDFs and viewing preferences

The initial view of the PDF depends on how its creator set the document properties. For example, a document may open at a particular page or magnification.

When you’re reading a document, you can hide all the toolbars and task panes to maximize the viewing area on your screen.

The basic reading controls, such as page navigation and zoom, appear in a semi-transparent floating toolbar near the bottom of the window.

• To open Read mode, choose View > Read Mode, or click the Read Mode button  in the upper-right corner of the toolbar.

• To restore the work area to its previous view, choose View > Read Mode again. You can also click the close button in the floating toolbar.

View PDFs in Full Screen mode

In Full Screen mode, only the document appears; the menu bar, toolbars, task panes, and window controls are hidden. A PDF creator can set a PDF to open in Full Screen mode, or you can set the view yourself. Full Screen mode is often used for presentations, sometimes with automatic page advancement and transitions.

The pointer remains active in Full Screen mode so that you can click links and open notes. There are two ways to advance through a PDF in Full Screen mode. You can use keyboard shortcuts for navigational and magnification commands, and you can set a Full Screen preference to display Full Screen navigation buttons that you click to change pages or exit Full Screen mode.

Set the Full Screen navigation bar preference

The Full Screen navigation bar contains Previous Page , Next Page , and Close Full Screen View  buttons. These buttons appear in the lower-left corner of the work area.

Read a document in Full Screen mode

If the Full Screen navigation bar is not shown, you can use keyboard shortcuts to navigate through a PDF.

Touch mode for tablet and mobile devices

Touch mode makes it easier to use Acrobat and Reader on touch devices. Toolbar buttons, panels, and menus shift apart slightly to accommodate selecting with your fingers. The Touch reading mode optimizes viewing and supports most common gestures. Acrobat and Reader automatically switch to Touch mode when on a touch-enabled device. You can add a Touch mode toggle button to the toolbar or change the default preference setting for Touch mode.

Display Touch mode button on toolbar

You can display a toolbar button to toggle Touch mode on and off.

Set Touch Mode preference

You can set how Acrobat enters Touch mode, if at all, for touch enabled-devices.

Change the PDF/A viewing mode

PDF/A is an ISO standard for long-term archiving and preservation of electronic documents. Documents you scan to PDF are PDF/A-compliant. You can specify whether you want to view documents in this viewing mode.

When you open a PDF/A compliant document in PDF/A viewing mode, the document is opened in Read mode to prevent modification. A message is displayed in the document message bar. You will be unable to make changes and add annotations to the document. If you turn off PDF/A mode, you can edit the document.

For a video on working with PDF/A files, see www.adobe.com/go/learn_acr_pdfa_en.

Display PDFs in Line Weights view

The Line Weights view displays lines with the weights defined in the PDF. When Line Weights view is off, it applies a constant stroke width (1 pixel) to lines, regardless of zoom. When you print the document, the stroke prints at the true width.

Compare a revised PDF to an earlier version (Acrobat Pro)

Use the Compare Documents feature to show the differences between two versions of a PDF. You can customize many options for displaying the compare results. For a video on comparing PDFs, see www.adobe.com/go/lrvid_011_acrx_en. (Video applies to both Acrobat X and Acrobat XI.)

Document Description options

Compares the content as one continuous text body, from end to end.

Looks at each slide or page as a mini-document, and matches ones that are similar. Then compares the content of each matching document. Identifies documents that have moved, such as slides in presentation.

Creates an image capture of each scanned page and compares pixels. Looks at each scanned page and matches ones that are similar. Also identifies pages that are in a different order. This option is useful for comparing images or architectural drawings.

Use this option with any document type. This option is designed for comparing text in large documents (250 pages or more). This option also compares text between documents that have background artwork on each page, which slows processing.

• With either the reports or presentation options selected, the Compare Text Only option identifies only the text differences between two documents.

• With Scanned Documents selected, the text is compared separately from the graphics, and then the results are combined. In documents containing magazine advertisements that have text on top of background image art, a reflowed passage is compared in text-only mode. The artwork is compared separately in the background. The differences (both text and line art and images) are combined into a single results document.

Preferences for viewing PDFs

The Preferences dialog box defines a default page layout and customizes your application in many other ways. For viewing PDFs, examine the preferences options for Documents, General, Page Display, and 3D & Multimedia.

The preferences settings control how the application behaves whenever you use it; they are not associated with any particular PDF document.

Documents preferences

Open Settings

Determines whether documents open automatically to the last viewed page within a work session.

Closes the current document and opens the document being linked to in the same window, minimizing the number of windows open. If the document being linked to is already open in another window, the current document is not closed when you click a link to the open document. If you do not select this option, a new window opens each time you click a link to a different document.

Allows the author of a layered PDF document to specify layer visibility based on user information.

Allows the PDF to determine whether the menu bar, toolbar, and window controls are hidden when the PDF is opened.

Sets the maximum number of documents listed in the File menu.

Save Settings

Determines how often Acrobat automatically saves changes to an open document.

Restructures a PDF document for page-at-a-time downloading from web servers.

PDF/A View Mode

Specifies when to use this viewing mode: Never, or Only For PDF/A Documents.

Hidden Information

Searches the PDF for items that may not be apparent, such as metadata, file attachments, comments, and hidden text and layers. The search results appear in a dialog box, and you can remove any type of item that appears there.

(Not selected by default.)

(Not selected by default.)

Redaction

Specifies a prefix or suffix to use when saving a file to which redaction marks have been applied.

Specifies which installed language version of Acrobat to use for the patterns. For example, if you installed both the English and German versions, then you can choose either language for the patterns. The Patterns option appears in the Search and Redaction dialog boxes.

Full Screen preferences

Full Screen Setup

Specifies whether the display is limited to a single PDF.

Sets the page view to the maximum screen coverage by a single page.

Displays a message before going into Full Screen mode. Selecting this option overrides a previous selection of Do Not Show This Message Again in that message.

Specifies the monitor on which full-screen display appears (for users with multiple-monitor configurations).

Full Screen Navigation

Lets you exit Full Screen mode by pressing the Esc key. If this option is not selected, you can exit by pressing Ctrl+L.

Shows a minimal navigation toolbar regardless of the document settings.

Lets you page through an Adobe PDF document by clicking the mouse. You can also page through a document by pressing Return, Shift-Return (to go backward), or the arrow keys.

Lets you page through a PDF document continuously, returning to the first page after the last. This option is typically used for setting up kiosk displays.

Specifies whether to advance automatically from page to page every set number of seconds. You can page through a document using mouse or keyboard commands even if automatic paging is selected.

Full Screen Appearance

Specifies the window’s background color in Full Screen mode. You can select a color from the color palette to customize the background color.

Specifies whether to show or hide the pointer when Full Screen mode is in operation.

Full Screen Transitions

Removes transition effects from presentations that you view in Full Screen mode.

Specifies the transition effect to display when you switch pages in Full Screen mode and no transition effect has been set for the document.

Determines the flow of the selected default transition on the screen, such as Down, Left, Horizontal, and so on. The available options vary according to the transition. If no directional options affect the selected default transition, this option is not available.

Mimics the user’s progress through the presentation, such as transitioning from top to bottom when the user proceeds to the next page and from bottom to top when the user backtracks to the previous page. Available only for transitions with directional options.

General preferences

Basic Tools

Enables you to select tools with a single keystroke. This option is deselected by default.

Specifies whether links that weren’t created with Acrobat are automatically identified in the PDF document and become clickable links.

Enables the Hand tool to function as the Select tool when it hovers over text in an Adobe PDF.

Changes the appearance of the Hand tool pointer when over an article thread. Upon the first click, the article zooms to fill the document pane horizontally; subsequent clicks follow the thread of the article.

Changes the action of the mouse wheel from scrolling to zooming.

Changes the order in which the Select tool selects.

Sets the resolution used to copy an image captured with the Snapshot tool.

Sets how Acrobat enters the Touch mode, if at all, for touch enabled-devices. In Touch mode, Toolbar buttons, panels, and menus shift apart slightly to accommodate selecting with your fingers. The Touch reading mode optimizes viewing and supports most common gestures.

Warnings

Disables warning boxes that would normally appear when you delete items such as links, pages, page thumbnails, and bookmarks.

Restores default settings for warnings.

Messages From Adobe

Allows in-product marketing messages from Adobe to appear in the Welcome Screen when you launch the application without a document open. Click a message to get information about features, updates, or online services, or to open an element in the application, such as a task pane. Deselect the option to prevent in-product marketing messages from appearing.

Application Startup

Determines whether the application startup screen appears each time the application starts.

Ensures that only Adobe-certified third-party plug-ins are loaded. The notation Currently in Certified Mode indicates either Yes or No depending on its status.

(Appears only if your computer hardware supports 2D graphics acceleration.) When selected, allows hardware acceleration usage when the first document is opened. When deselected, hardware acceleration usage starts after the first document is opened. This option can slow startup time, so it is deselected by default.

Specifies which application, Reader or Acrobat, is used to open PDFs. This setting applies if you have both Acrobat and Reader installed on your computer. In Windows 7 or earlier, a browser uses this setting only if it is using the Adobe plug-in or add-on for viewing PDF files. In Windows 8, this setting controls which application is the default PDF application for your system, including in your browser. Windows 8 prompts you to allow this change before applying it to your system. Once set, Windows 8 also uses the selected PDF application for tasks related to PDF files, such as previewing, displaying thumbnails, and providing file information.

Page Display preferences

Default Layout And Zoom

Sets the page layout used for scrolling when you first open a document. The default setting is Automatic. The Page Layout setting in File > Properties > Initial View overrides this value.

Sets the magnification level for PDF documents when they are first opened. The default setting is Automatic. The Magnification setting in File > Properties > Initial View overrides this value.

Resolution

Uses the system settings for monitor resolution.

Sets the monitor resolution.

Rendering

Specifies the type of text-smoothing to apply.

Applies smoothing to remove abrupt angles in lines.

Applies smoothing to minimize abrupt changes in images.

Specifies whether the application uses or ignores local fonts installed on your system. When deselected, substitute fonts are used for any font not embedded in the PDF. If a font cannot be substituted, the text appears as bullets and an error message appears.

When selected, clarifies thin lines in the display to make them more visible.

Places the next page in a buffer before the current page is viewed to reduce the time required to page through a document.

(Appears only if your computer hardware supports 2D graphics acceleration.) Speeds up zooming, scrolling, and redrawing of page content, and speeds the rendering and manipulation of 2D PDF content. This option is selected by default.

Page Content And Information

Displays large images. If your system is slow to display image-intensive pages, deselect this option.

When deselected, turns off animation effects, which improves performance.

Displays any art, trim, or bleed boxes defined for a document.

Displays the grid behind transparent objects.

Enables the Number Pages command for matching the position of the page in the PDF to the number printed on the page. A page number, followed by the page position in parentheses, appears in the Page Navigation toolbar and in the Go To Page and Print dialog boxes. For example, i (1 of 1) if the printed number of the first page is i. If this option is not selected, pages are numbered with arabic numbers starting at 1. Selecting this option helps prevent unexpected behavior when clicking Back or Go Back in your web browser.

Displays the page measurements beside the horizontal scroll bar.

Specifies whether Overprint Preview mode is on only for PDF/X files, never on, always on, or set automatically. When set to Automatic, if a document contains overprints, then Overprint Preview mode is activated. The Overprint Preview mode lets you see (onscreen) the effects of ink aliasing in the printed output. For example, a printer or service provider could create an ink alias if a document contains two similar spot colors and only one is required.

Sets the default color space, Working RGB or Working CMYK, for transparency blending.

Reference XObjects View Mode

Specifies the type of documents in which reference XObjects can be viewed.

(Optional) Specifies a location for the referenced documents.