Workspace basics | Acrobat

Adobe Acrobat application has the following three views:

• Home view - The application's landing page or the default page when no document is open in Acrobat.
• All tools view - Page that lists all the tools available in Acrobat.
• Document view - The default view when a document is open in Acrobat. When you open multiple documents, each document opens as a tab in the same application window.

Adobe Acrobat application also allows you to customize views, easily navigate through pages, set Preferences, and more.

Home view

The Home view gives you quick access to your recent files, shared files, frequently used tools, to-do tasks, and storage accounts.

From the Acrobat Reader Home page, you can do the following tasks:

• Access Recent files - Select the Recent tab to view the list of the files that you recently worked on. It may contain the files on your system, on Adobe cloud storage, or other third-party storage like OneDrive, Dropbox, Box, SharePoint, and Google Drive. You can filter the files to view the list of files that were shared by you,  shared by others, or the files on your system. The Sharing label indicates whether the file is shared or local to you.
  
• View quick details - When you select any file from the list, a right panel displays on the right showing a thumbnail preview of the file and a list of frequently used tools. You can select any tool to perform the desired action on the file.
  
• Access Starred files - You can view all your starred files by selecting Starred from the left panel. You can label your important files as starred for quick access across various devices. The starred files are copied to Adobe cloud storage. To hide the starred file from your list of recent files, select  > Preferences > General and then deselect View Starred files in Recent tab.
  For more information, see Star your important files and access them across devices.
• Access the files on Adobe cloud storage - All your files stored on Adobe cloud storage can be accessed from the Your files, Scans, Shared by you, or Shared by others links under the Adobe cloud storage menu on the left panel.
• View and sign agreements - From the left panel, select Adobe Acrobat Sign under Agreements to view and manage the agreements that you have sent or received.
• Access files from other storage accounts - From your online accounts, such as Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, and Microsoft SharePoint. You can add the accounts using the Add Account link in the left pane. For more information, see Working with online accounts.
  
• Get notifications - The notification bell notifies you of any status change on the shared documents. It displays notifications about all the incoming and outgoing requests for documents shared for viewing, reviewing, and signing. For more information, see Document Cloud notifications.
• Access tools - You can quickly access a few tools from the toolbar at the top of the Home page.
• Manage account - To edit or update your account, select the profile icon from the top-right corner and then select Manage my account. It opens your account page where you can view your subscribed plans or edit your profile.
• Get help - For any query related to using the Acrobat Reader app, you can select xx from the top bar and access Acrobat Help, view Acrobat Tutorials, provide feedback, or learn about new features.

All tools view

From the toolbars on the Home page, select See all tools to view all the tools available in Acrobat or Reader. The tools are listed in categories. When you select any tool, it displays the tool-specific menu on the left panel. You can select any command to take action on the open document. If you do not have any document open, choose Select a file to open the file that you want to work on.  

Document view

When you open a document in the Acrobat app, it is displayed under a new tab with an 'All tools' menu in the left panel, a Quick action toolbar, and a right side panel, as shown below.   

View multiple documents

When you open multiple PDFs, the application opens each PDF as a separate tab in the same application by default. Previous and Next buttons are displayed towards the right to navigate through document tabs when you open several documents that do not fit the document view.

Customize views

• Change Display themes
• Customize the Quick action toolbar
• Customize side panels

Change Display themes

You can change the overall look and feel of your Acrobat application by changing the display themes. To choose the theme, go to   > View > Display theme, and then select one of the following themes:

• System Theme - Acrobat changes the UI as per the OS theme. If the OS theme is changed while Acrobat is running, then Acrobat’s theme also gets updated.
  
• Light grey - This is the default theme. All the UI elements and the document background appear light gray.
  
• Dark grey -  It improves visual ergonomics by reducing eye strain, improves screen usage in dark environments, and saves battery. The dark theme is now extended to include the top menu, on-page context menu, scroll bar, and comments pane.

Customize Quick action toolbar

When you open a document in Acrobat, it displays a Quick action toolbar that allows you to quickly access the frequently used tools. 

You can change the tools that appear on the Quick action toolbar as per your specific requirements.

To customize the Quick action toolbar: 

Customize side panels

Acrobat allows you to customize the side panel menus to view the tools that you want to quickly access while working on a document. To customize the side panels, use any of the following two ways:

• Right-click on the side panel and then from the dialog that opens, select the tools that you want to view or deselect the tools that you want to hide.
• Go to   > View > Show/Hide > Side panels and select the tools you want to view and deselect the ones you want to hide.

Unlike the menus that appear at the top of your screen, Context 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 side panel, it displays the side panel customizing menu. When you right-click on the document, it displays the document context menu, as shown below. 

Navigate through pages

You can easily navigate through the pages of a document by going to  > View > Page navigation and using the navigation menu tools, as shown below. 

The navigation tools also appear at the bottom of the right panel which allows you to have quick access to the navigation buttons.

• You can use the up and down arrows to navigate through the pages.
• To jump to a page, type the desired page number in the box.
• To rotate the page, select the rotate icon.
• To change the page display settings, select  and then select the desired tool. 

Buttons at the top of the side panel provide access to tools such as Page Thumbnails , Bookmarks , Comments , and more. 

When you select a tool, it appears in a column on the left side of the work area. You can change the width of the navigation pane by dragging its right border.

Set preferences

You can go to  > Preferences to change settings for display, tools, conversion, signatures, performance, and more. 

In the Preferences dialog, under Categories, select the type of preference you want to change. Once you set preferences, they remain in effect until you change them.

Restore (re-create) preferences

Restore the Acrobat preferences files in Windows

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 in Mac OS

In case you are facing problems due to a damaged preferences file, you can restore the Acrobat preferences files to get the default settings. To do so:

If the problem recurs after you restore the Acrobat preferences files, then the problem isn’t related to the preferences files. To restore custom settings:

1. Drag the files you moved in Step 2 back to their original location.
2. For 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?”, select Ok.
3. Select  > Preferences.
4. Under Categories, select the type of preference you want to change.
   

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