WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

New Acrobat Interface

for

From: chagnon
Date: Aug 14, 2023 6:12PM

Wondering if any on the list have installed the newest version of Adobe
Acrobat, version 2023. And if so, what are your thoughts about the new
interface, which Adobe has called the "Modern Viewer."

I'm talking about Adobe Acrobat software, not PDF files in general which can
be made and used by more than 100 different programs from other companies.

Please let Adobe's engineers know your thoughts at their User Voice webpage
<https://acrobat.uservoice.com/forums/590923-acrobat-for-windows-and-mac/sug
gestions/47082691-ditch-the-2023-user-interface-in-acrobat> ,
https://acrobat.uservoice.com/forums/590923-acrobat-for-windows-and-mac/sugg
estions/47082691-ditch-the-2023-user-interface-in-acrobat

Your vote is critical to let Adobe's powers know that the latest version
doesn't meet our industry's needs, and in fact, makes the software less
accessible than before.

My reaction (disclaimer, I'm on Adobe's beta testing team and their
community forums) is like hundreds of others who depend on Acrobat to
create, use, and process PDF files:

1. It's inaccessible. So many features are not fully available to
screen readers and other A T: bookmarks panel, comments panel, redacting,
digital signatures, OCR, accessibility remediation are just a few.

2. The interface consists of many panels with small grey icons
scattered throughout in no logical order. I'm sighted and can't find tools
that I've been using for 20+ years.

3. They switched the left-hand panels to the right side, and the
right-hand panels to the left - for no apparent reason, other than to
frustrate every Acrobat user.

4. Many of its critical tools are still broken - creating accessible
PDFs, signing PDFs, filling out forms, OCR, combining PDFs, editing PDFs -
the list of problems in Acrobat is endless.

Thanks for your thoughts.

And if you want to disable the new interface and revert to the old,
instructions are at the end of the webpage listed above.

-Bevi Chagnon



- - -

Bevi Chagnon | Designer, Accessibility Technician | <EMAIL REMOVED>
<mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> >

- - -

PubCom: Technologists for Accessible Design + Publishing

consulting . training . development . design . sec. 508 services

Upcoming classes at www.PubCom.com/ <http://www.pubcom.com/classes>; classes

- - -