I notice to my dismay that Adobe have just brought out a new ‘improved’ edition of Acrobat Reader, totally different from all its predecessors. I say dismay because if a purchaser follows our advice and gets the latest Acrobat Reader, that renders all my detailed guidance notes supplied with each DVD obsolete.
I found this new version hard to use. For quite a while I was stuck. Not a single one of the prominent buttons did anything I was likely ever to need. For basic tasks such as proceeding to the next page of the file or changing its magnification, there seemed to be nothing provided.
Eventually I discovered those controls, just visible and squeezed in to a narrow vertical column on the far right, as if a kind of afterthought. Even now I find them awkward to use, with the zoom in particular far from intuitive.
I looked at an on-line blog discussing the new Acrobat Reader, and was not surprised to find that, almost without exception, the verdict was very strongly negative. My hope is that Adobe will take all this on board, and return to the classic version.
Meanwhile, if like me you find the new version inconvenient to use, there is hope. Click on the menu button – this is at the top left, marked with three horizontal lines above one another. About three-quarters of the way down a long list you will see ‘Disable new Acrobat Reader’. Pick that and to your relief you get returned to the classic version permanently. (In the unlikely event that you later change your mind, in the classic version go to View / Enable New Acrobat Reader.)