Tweaking Adobe Reader to Save without File select dialog

Adobe Acrobat’s reader is by far the most commonly used PDF reader in this world. Nevertheless, the default file saving option is a no-go. Here is the work-around.

Whenever you try to save a PDF after e.g. adding a comment or highlighting text in Adobe reader using the Save button or CTRL + S, you need to go through that long dialog where you first select the file location and then you need to confirm that you want to overwrite the existing file. If you use Adobe Reader to mark stuff in your documents, this can become a huge pain. There is a workaround though to disable this.

Go to Edit –> Preferences –> Security (Enhanced) –> Disable Enable Protected Mode at startup. Confirm the dialog with “Yes”. Next time you open a document, you can use CTRL + S to directly save it without further annoying confirmation.

If you comment in average five PDFs a day during your work week and the saving takes you 5 sec each time for that dialog, this tweak will save you almost 50h of clicking through that file select dialog over the next 30 years.

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