Maybe I’m misusing Adobe Reader, but I’ve always thought of it as a program that displays PDF files. In my case, that means data sheets for various & sundry electronic parts: I carefully squirrel both PDFs and parts away, having learned that physical parts can outlast both datasheets and company websites.
So I open quite a few PDFs that reside on my file server in the basement.
With that in mind, what’s missing from this row of toolbar icons?
Go ahead, take your time…
Hint: the only active button lets you “start an Acrobat Connect meeting and share documents”.
This has been true for the last few versions; the Official Ubuntu Linux Version seems to be stuck at 8.1-ish. Let’s jump ahead a bit, fetch 9.3 directly from the Adobe download page, and install it:
Now I can not only “Share documents and collaborate live within PDF documents”, but also “Click to create PDF using Acrobat.com”.
What I can’t do is open a PDF file from disk by just clicking a button. That rarely used function is relegated to the File pulldown menu and, for those of us who can touch-type fairly well, hidden behind the arcane Ctrl-O keyboard chord.
Reconfiguring the toolbar is a few minutes of clickety-click action, but it seems odd to me that none of the focus group participants suggested putting an Open File button on the toolbar.
Although I never ascribe to malice what can be explained by stupidity, this continuing design decision does seem to require forethought.
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 
Comments
4 responses to “Adobe Reader Default Toolbar: FAIL”
Steve Jobs appears to be correct – Adobe software typically sucks. At the lunchtable last week the consensus was that the most important function of Adobe software lately seems to be to update itself …. continually!
Yet Another Benefit of using a Linux distro: Adobe Reader updates seem relatively few & far between.
I don’t know, but I suspect they have more trouble keeping malware out of the Windows version…
Adobe has lately caused me to be completely dumbfounded as to what their intentions are. As a “reader” of PDF’s they seem to assume I want to create them among many other things… “No, ADOBE, if I had wanted to that… I would have purchased the full version of ACROBAT.” They seem to fall in with the feature-itis crowd and don’t understand that a free program that is “just a reader” is actually OK.
I suppose they’re trying to monetize their IP, but … it still doesn’t make any sense!