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How do I get the Adobe PDF navigation bar to automatically appear at the top of my screen again instead of when I move my mouse?

  • 4 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 168 views
  • Last reply by agraham

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Before I upgraded my computer to Windows 7 and updated Firefox to the latest version, when I opened a PDF document online, the PDF navigation/menu bar would automatically appear at the top of the screen. Now it only appears at the bottom in a blue bar when I move my mouse around.

Before I upgraded my computer to Windows 7 and updated Firefox to the latest version, when I opened a PDF document online, the PDF navigation/menu bar would automatically appear at the top of the screen. Now it only appears at the bottom in a blue bar when I move my mouse around.

Chosen solution

cor-el, thanks for the tip. While I certainly scoured Adobe's preference settings to look for something relating to that exact thing, I never went to their help site until I got your post. I found out that the floating toolbar appears because the PDF opens in Read Mode, which you can turn off for all future documents by doing this:

  • Quit your internet browser
  • Launch Acrobat (or Reader)
  • Choose Edit>Preferences
  • Click on the Internet category on the left
  • Deselect “Display in Read Mode by default”
  • Click the OK button.
  • Relaunch Acrobat

Something important to note, if you have both Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader, you need to do the above in both programs (same steps).

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Thanks, but this does not solve the problem. I am trying to get the PDF toolbar to stay docked at the top by default (see image).

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Did you check the Adobe Reader Preferences to see if there is a setting to choose between a floating bar and the classic toolbar at the top?

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Chosen Solution

cor-el, thanks for the tip. While I certainly scoured Adobe's preference settings to look for something relating to that exact thing, I never went to their help site until I got your post. I found out that the floating toolbar appears because the PDF opens in Read Mode, which you can turn off for all future documents by doing this:

  • Quit your internet browser
  • Launch Acrobat (or Reader)
  • Choose Edit>Preferences
  • Click on the Internet category on the left
  • Deselect “Display in Read Mode by default”
  • Click the OK button.
  • Relaunch Acrobat

Something important to note, if you have both Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader, you need to do the above in both programs (same steps).