CONTROLLING THE VIEWING EXPERIENCE IN ACROBAT

Question

CONTROLLING THE VIEWING EXPERIENCE IN ACROBAT
This is a major bug (going back to at lease Acrobat 5) and just one of many related to the “Document Properties > Initial View” setting, which seem to be a “special project” for the Adobe Acrobat tech-team. I say “special” in the sense that the goal appears to be … How can they address these issues in each successive version to actually make them LESS FUNCTIONAL and LESS INTUITIVE?
Default = Sucks!
I run a successful graphic design firm and have invested well over $1000,000 in various Adobe products. When we send our work to clients (via PDF) for review, EVERY aspect – window size, window placement, format and flow of pages, page layout, navigation options, page magnification, document page numbers, document titles and file names, etc., etc. etc. – are absolutely critical. The “default” settings for Acrobat address virtually none of these issues and Adobe seems not to care at all! 99.9% of all the Acrobat documents that I receive are completely unformatted and must be reset before they can be navigated or reviewed.
Navigation Tab > Pages Panel and Page = Does Not Work!
However, perhaps most critical is that the recipient realizes that the document contains multiple pages, vs. a single page. The failure of the “Navigation Tab > Pages Panel and Page” setting to function in any logical and consistent (read – where is the default setting for this?) manner has been and is a fatal flaw in Adobe Acrobat. We have dealt with this (“Where is the rest of the document?”) literally hundreds of times and while it is a big headache for our staff, what worries me more are the recipients that never even bother to ask.
Thumbnail Size = Does Not Work!
I too have found no way to set the default size of the thumbnails. To add insult to injury, after you do enlarge them manually (2-3 steps) and enlarge the Pages Panel pane to accommodate the slightly larger thumbnails, guess what happens? When you reopen the document, Acrobat reverts to the original (tiny) thumbnails, but retains the enlarged (now useless) Pages Panel pane, while equally reducing the actual content in the Page pane. This is massively stupid!
Page Layout for Viewing and Printing = Does Not Work!
Another pet peeve is the “Page Layout” settings. When we design a multi-page document and convert it to PDF for review, it is imperative that the “flow” of the document – i.e. single page cover, followed by two-page spreads – be replicated as closely as possible. And while this on-screen experience is important, of nearly equal importance is the ability of the recipient to print each individual page of our design, as an individual 8.5 x 11 page. Again, finding a way to accomplish this in a logical and consistent manner is virtually impossible.
Printing = Why So Slow?
Speaking of printing ... Why does it usually take “forever” to print (even small) PDF files on a laser printer?
Controlling the Viewing Experience = Does Not Work!
In short, we usually have no idea exactly what our clients are seeing because Adobe provides no default settings that can be set globally and “locked” so that one has a bit of control over the viewing presentation experienced by the recipient. On the other had, Adobe does provide a mindless blizzard of security options which probably serve about 1% of their customers.
Sorry for the rant, but if anyone has any ideas, I love to hear them. Thank you very much!

Answer 1

It's evident you're annoyed, but I don't agree at all with your claims. If you use Acrobat as intended, you can control the initial view settings however you want - but this is a document-specific feature and intentionally so. If people are sending you files with the "wrong" initial view, that's their problem not Adobe's.
Navigation Tab > Pages Panel and Page = Does Not Work!
Of course it does. The menu item or hotkey sets the view mode temporarily, and to make that mode the default for a particular file, you simply set the initial view (file menu / properties / initial view) and save it. Whatever you choose for the layout, zoom and panel displays will be shown to anyone opening the file in future.
Thumbnail Size = Does Not Work!
The thumbnails embedded into a PDF file are at a single size. Enlarging them via the context menu on the Navigation Panel is temporary, but the width of the Panel is retained for a session (it is not permanent).
Page Layout for Viewing and Printing = Does Not Work!
What do you mean by "does not work"? The screen layout has no relationship whatsoever to the printouts, so provided your files are genuine pages and not spreads, you can set your two-up views (with or without covers) as part of the document properties / initial view settings, but the PDF will print as a series of single pages as it should.
Printing = Why So Slow?
Printing a PDF file takes no longer than any other type of file with the same content (and hence the same data to transfer). If you are experiencing very slow printing then it's a problem with your system setup.
Controlling the Viewing Experience = Does Not Work!
See my response above about the document preferences / initial view tab.
Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader have been developed over many years, based on very extensive user feedback and monitoring. The features we have today are there because they DO satisfy the vast majority of target users, and if they didn't, these forums would be deluged with complaints - there are after all hundreds of millions of users out there, so even if 1% were unhappy you'd be reading millions of posts a week.