Workspace basics

Adobe Acrobat user interface has three views - Home, Tools, and Document.

Further, the Document view can have one of the two interfaces - Single Document Interface (view one document at a time) or Multiple Document Interface (tabbed interface for multiple PDFs viewing).

This is the gateway or the landing page when you don’t have a PDF opened in Acrobat. When you launch Acrobat or Reader, you see a welcome message with the Learn More button pointing to a quick introduction document.

The Home view displays file lists and storage accounts.

• File Lists: Shows Recent and Sent files views. All your recently accessed files are displayed in the Recent files view, and all the files that you sent using Adobe Send & Track and Send for Signature are displayed in the Sent files view.
• Storage: It lists various places or accounts from which you can open and work on files from within Acrobat or Reader - My Computer, Document Cloud, and Add Account (a SharePoint or Dropbox account).
  

In the Recent files view, you can see your recently used files. For a selected file, a details panel appears on the right showing a thumbnail preview of the file, its location, and a list of frequently used tools.

For local files, you can click the location in the details panel to open the folder in Explorer. However, you cannot open the location if it’s Adobe Document Cloud or Dropbox.

The Remove from Recent option in the details panel allows you to selectively remove files from the Recent files list.

In the Sent files view, you can track and manage your sent files online. The available options are displayed when you choose a file in the right pane. You can also manage your files sent for signature using the Manage Document Sent for Signature link at the bottom in the right pane.

Storage lists offline and online places from where you can access your files. Apart from your local computer, you can access files:

• Stored securely in Adobe Document Cloud using the Document Cloud link in the left pane.
• From your online accounts, such as Dropbox and Microsoft SharePoint. You can add SharePoint or Dropbox accounts using the Add Account link in the left pane. For more information, see Working with online accounts.
  

This is the go to place to navigate and discover tools available in Acrobat/Reader. All the tools are listed by categories. When you choose a tool, the tool-specific commands or toolbar appears in the document view if a file is opened.

You can also open some tools even without opening a document. If the tool requires a document to be open, choosing a tool prompts you to select a document.

To add a shortcut of a tool in the right pane, click the Add button below the tool name.

To remove the shortcut of a tool from the right pane, click the Down Arrow button next to Open below the tool name, and then choose Remove Shortcut.

Alternatively, to remove the shortcut, click the cross button for the shortcut in the right pane.

By default, you see tabbed interface for multiple PDFs viewing. When you open multiple PDFs, each PDF opens as a tab in the same application window. You can switch among the tabs from the top – tab name shows the name of the file opened in the tab. A previous button and a next button are displayed towards right to navigate through document tabs when the number of documents are high and don’t fit the document view.

The menu bar and the toolbar are visible at the top of the work area. The work area for the stand-alone application includes a document pane in the middle, a navigation pane on the left, and tools or task pane on the right side. The document pane displays PDFs. The navigation pane on the left side helps you browse through the PDF and perform other options on PDF files. Toolbars near the top of the window provide other controls that you can use to work with PDFs.

Ordinarily, it’s a good idea to keep the Acrobat menus visible so that they are available as you work. It is possible to hide them, using the View > Show/Hide > Menu Bar command. However, the only way to display and use them again is by pressing F9 (Windows) or Shift+Command+M (Mac OS).

Unlike the menus that appear at the top of your screen, context-sensitive menus display commands related to the active tool or selection. You can use context menus as a quick way to choose commonly used commands. For example, when you right-click the toolbar area, that context menu displays the same commands as the View > Show/Hide > Toolbar Items menu.

Initially, you may not see various tools in the toolbar. You can add tools to the toolbar for easy access.

To add tools in the toolbar, right-click an empty space in the toolbar and choose the tools that you want to appear in the toolbar.

You can add tools you use frequently from the Tools to the Quick Tools toolbar.

You can add tools to the Common Tools toolbar.

When your work does not involve using the tools in a toolbar, you can close the toolbar to tidy up the work area. If several PDFs are open, you can customize the toolbars for each PDF independently. The different customized states persist as you switch between PDFs.

• To hide all toolbars, choose View > Show/Hide > Toolbar Items > Hide Toolbars.
• To return toolbars to their default configuration, choose View > Show/Hide > Toolbar Items > Reset Toolbars.

By default, the Select tool  is active when Acrobat opens, because it is the most versatile tool.

You can assemble your own customized collection of Acrobat features, then save it and share with others. It allows you to quickly access the tools and commands you use the most.  

You can edit, rename, copy, delete, rearrange, or share tool sets. You can specify the order the tool sets appear in the Customize menu by moving them up or down in the list. You can share tool sets with your workgroup using the Import and Export options.

• Choose Tools > [custom tool name] > click the Down Arrow button and then choose an appropriate option.

The navigation pane is an area of the workspace that can display different navigation panels. Various functional tools can appear in the navigation pane. For example, the Page Thumbnails panel contains thumbnail images of each page; clicking a thumbnail opens that page in the document.

When you open a PDF, the navigation pane is closed by default. Buttons along the left side of the work area provide easy access to various panels, such as the Page Thumbnails button and the Bookmarks panel button . When Acrobat is open but empty (no PDF is open), the navigation pane is unavailable.

All navigation panels, such as Bookmarks, appear in a column on the left side of the work area.

• To change the width of the navigation pane, drag its right border.

• To view a different panel, on the left side of the navigation pane, select the button for the panel

All navigation panels have an options menu in the upper-left corner. The commands available in these menus vary.

Some panels also contain other buttons that affect the items in the panel. Again, these buttons vary among the different panels, and some panels have none.

Many program settings are specified in the Preferences dialog box, including settings for display, tools, conversion, signatures, and performance. Once you set preferences, they remain in effect until you change them.

Restore the Acrobat Preferences folder to eliminate problems that damaged preferences cause. Most preference problems are caused by these file-based preferences, although most Acrobat preferences are stored within the registry.

If the problem recurs after you restore the Acrobat Preferences folder, then the problem isn’t related to the Preferences folder. To restore custom settings, drag the folder you moved in step 2 back to its original location. Then click Yes To All to replace the new Preferences folder.

Restore the Acrobat preferences files to eliminate problems caused by a damaged preferences file.

If the problem recurs after you restore the Acrobat preferences files, then the problem isn’t related to preferences files. To restore custom settings, drag the files you moved in step 2 back to their original location. Then click OK to the alert “A newer item named ‘[filename]’ already exists in this location. Do you want to replace it with the older one you're moving?”