Hopefully some of you have already acquired the latest and greatest release of Acrobat – Acrobat X. Or perhaps you downloaded the free 30-day trial from Adobe by visiting this link. Once Acrobat X is loaded, you were likely to run the program immediately to see how the user interface has changed. And oh how it changed! One immediately notices that Acrobat is less cluttered with menus and toolbars. Rather than focusing on the many things that used to be there, I want to point out something that wasn’t there in earlier Acrobat versions, but has been added to the Acrobat X interface. In the upper right portion of Acrobat X is a button. It is a quick way to enter Acrobat X’s Read Mode. Read Mode is not new to Acrobat. In Acrobat 9, if you wanted to hide much of the interface to make for cleaner onscreen viewing, you could go to View>Reading Mode (ctrl H) to hide 
the menus and toolbars. I actually have used Reading Mode for years, and like the feature. It has definitely kept me from wasting paper and toner, since Reading Mode really does make reading a PDF file onscreen easier. Before Acrobat X, Reading Mode was a hidden gem that few ever uncovered, I believe.
With Acrobat X’s interface make-over Read Mode becomes a more easily found and more capable feature. No, I’m not being sloppy. Reading Mode was the name in Acrobat 9 and earlier, and now it is called Read Mode. It may now have a shorter name, but definitely sports extended features. Once you enter Read Mode, the menus and toolbars go away. You now will see a great little navigation device fade in and out as you need it. Document navigation, magnification – it’s there in Read Mode, but it’s not in your way, since it only appears onscreen when you move your mouse. The same keyboard shortcut still works to toggle in and out of Read Mode – Ctrl-H.
Want to learn more about Acrobat? The Acrobat world is vast and growing constantly. Don’t get left behind. To learn more about my Acrobat classes, send me an email to request training information and options. If you want extraordinary PDF files instead of ordinary ones, why not drop me a note?
