1. Home
  2. Document Management Systems
  3. Adobe Acrobat Reviews
  4. User Review of Adobe Acrobat
Good for some things, not so good for others
September 21, 2019

Good for some things, not so good for others

JOAN HOPE | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Adobe Acrobat DC

Most of the staff here use BlueBeam. I use Acrobat because it gives more flexibility in editing, combining documents, filling out forms, affixing signatures, etc.
  • Ability to sign documents: it's easy and allows multiple signatures in a single document.
  • Combining documents into a single document or a portfolio is easy and convenient.
  • Using Outlook's "convert to Adobe pdf" works well, it's much better than print, save to pdf, which produces atrocious saved documents.
  • Converting a scanned PDF to a Word document is just awful. It's generally easier just to retype the document.
  • The edit function in Adobe is hit and miss. The groupings of words/lines/sentences/objects are often very strange and generally in blocks that are too small. Some items are apparently uneditable without deleting a block altogether; highlighting and lines (as found in a form) are examples.
  • The font options are limited as for formatting. There is no way to change some defaults. The line spacing, for example, defaults to 1.10 rather than single spacing. Who on earth uses this line spacing for ANYTHING? It would be nice if Adobe would involve actual users in their design decisions or at least give users the option to set their own default settings.
  • I started using Acrobat when it was offered as a one-time software purchase on CDs. The software was easier to use before it was turned into the cartoon version published on the web. It's hard to say whether there's much of a price difference between the two—Adobe products have always been fairly expensive, so I doubt there's a net difference. It's also hard to quantify ROI—it's a tool that I use daily, without which there would be a lot of retyping or messy looking product. I'm sure someone can quantify that, but I'm not that person.
For my purposes, office administration versus engineering/project management, Adobe is more versatile. It's easier to combine documents, edit, bookmark, sign, fill out forms, design forms, etc.
The only time I recall using support was when I contacted them to ask how to change the default line spacing. My recollection was that it took a while to find the person who could answer this question, and the answer was "you can't."

Do you think Adobe Acrobat delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Adobe Acrobat's feature set?

No

Did Adobe Acrobat live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Adobe Acrobat go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Adobe Acrobat again?

Yes

Best suited to filling out forms, adding signatures to documents, saving emails, and minor edits to existing documents. Not a good option for converting documents to different formats (Word in particular), editing heavily formatted documents, or extensive edits.