Acrobat removes Acrobat XI and plug-ins compatibility issue

When Adobe Acrobat is installed using the Adobe Creative Cloud Desktop application, it removes Acrobat XI along with all plug-ins. When the 32-bit third-party plug-ins need to be reinstalled to the Acrobat folder, the install location is unknown, and the 32-bit plug-ins stop working on Mac OS.

Solution: Acquire 64-bit plug-in versions and copy them to the appropriate folder

Acrobat is now a 64-bit application on Mac OS. Therefore, for its plug-ins, it also uses 64-bit architecture. All the plug-ins that ship along with Acrobat are built for 64-bit architecture. However, third-party plug-ins built using the 32-bit architecture may not be compatible with Acrobat. Contact the respective plug-in developer and obtain a 64-bit version of the plug-in.

Note: This issue is specific to Mac OS only, and does not occur on Windows. On Windows, the existing third-party plug-ins can continue to be installed to the Adobe\Acrobat\Acrobat\plug_ins subfolder of the installation location for the subscription license and Adobe\Acrobat 2015\Acrobat\plug_ins for the Classic (Perpetual) license.

Also, on Mac OS, due to certain changes to Mac OS Gatekeeper (OS 10.9.5 and higher), Adobe plug-ins are now “V2 signed,” and therefore, no plug-ins can be installed in Acrobat’s installation location (/Applications/Adobe Acrobat).

Once you have the 64-bit third-party plug-ins, follow the steps below to copy them into the appropriate folder.