I'm very disappointed with the removal of almost all the features from the menu bar. We use two monitors at each of our workstations, and generally have nothing but the document window maximized on the primary monitor, with all of the palettes and buttons on the second monitor so we don't have to waste time opening, closing and moving things to use the tools without covering up the document window.
In Acrobat 10 and 11, if I open up the tools, the document window effectively shrinks, and I have no way of undocking the tools to place them on the second monitor. This is really frustrating when working with a massive map that takes a full minute to render, since opening up the tools instantly shrinks the viewing area and forces a redraw. Also, no tool is always in the same location on the screen. E.g., if you want to choose "convert colors," the location you need to click changes based on which tool categories are expanded. What would otherwise become practically muscle memory instead becomes this routine: click on "tools," click any disclosed arrow, wait for the animation, find "print production," click the arrow, wait for the animation, find "convert colors," click. I could almost do that with my eyes closed prior to Acrobat 10. Those extra seconds add up fast.
If you think Acrobat 9 is old, we're still mostly using Acrobat 7 even though we have each of the newer versions. Acrobat 7 is the last version that allows you to efficiently run through a PDF page-by-page turning the black ink off and on in output preview, and it runs pretty fast considering its PowerPC code running inside Rosetta on OS X 10.6. In later versions, you hit page-down on the keyboard to go to the next page, move the mouse inside the output preview window, click on it to give it focus, click again on the black ink a few times to toggle it off and on (but not too fast!), move the mouse back to the document window, click to give it focus, then repeat. In Acrobat 7, its page-down, click, click, page-down, click,click, etc. You don't need to watch the mouse cursor since you don't need to move the cursor off the black ink check box. It's just clicking with one hand and pressing the same key with the other. We like to optimize everything as much as possible to allow our press operators to produce the best product with the least difficulty, and sadly, Acrobat 7 still gets the job done better than the 4 major versions that have succeeded it.
In Acrobat 10 and 11, if I open up the tools, the document window effectively shrinks, and I have no way of undocking the tools to place them on the second monitor. This is really frustrating when working with a massive map that takes a full minute to render, since opening up the tools instantly shrinks the viewing area and forces a redraw. Also, no tool is always in the same location on the screen. E.g., if you want to choose "convert colors," the location you need to click changes based on which tool categories are expanded. What would otherwise become practically muscle memory instead becomes this routine: click on "tools," click any disclosed arrow, wait for the animation, find "print production," click the arrow, wait for the animation, find "convert colors," click. I could almost do that with my eyes closed prior to Acrobat 10. Those extra seconds add up fast.
If you think Acrobat 9 is old, we're still mostly using Acrobat 7 even though we have each of the newer versions. Acrobat 7 is the last version that allows you to efficiently run through a PDF page-by-page turning the black ink off and on in output preview, and it runs pretty fast considering its PowerPC code running inside Rosetta on OS X 10.6. In later versions, you hit page-down on the keyboard to go to the next page, move the mouse inside the output preview window, click on it to give it focus, click again on the black ink a few times to toggle it off and on (but not too fast!), move the mouse back to the document window, click to give it focus, then repeat. In Acrobat 7, its page-down, click, click, page-down, click,click, etc. You don't need to watch the mouse cursor since you don't need to move the cursor off the black ink check box. It's just clicking with one hand and pressing the same key with the other. We like to optimize everything as much as possible to allow our press operators to produce the best product with the least difficulty, and sadly, Acrobat 7 still gets the job done better than the 4 major versions that have succeeded it.
