Adobe Acrobat PDFMaker Toolbar in Office
Published August 03, 2004
There is an easy solution to this problem. I only found out after finding that this toolbar was in fact called "Adobe Acrobat PDFMaker Toolbar." After searches for "Adobe" and "Acrobat" I finally found "PDF" inside the MS Office folder.
I say delete these files. Mainly because it is SLOWER to use this palette then to use the Save PDF... button or the Virtual PDF Printer. This is not suprising because of how slow Office has become. Office 2004 is slower then Office v. X, so I am going to assume that to PDF a document in Word 2004 with the PDF Maker is slower then completing the same tast in Office v. X.
Kill these files:
Hard Drive/Applications/Microsoft Office 2004/PDFMakerLib
Hard Drive/Applications/Microsoft Office 2004/Startup/Word/PDFMaker.dot
Hard Drive/Applications/Microsoft Office 2004/Startup/PowerPoint/PDFMaker.ppa
Hard Drive/Applications/Microsoft Office 2004/Startup/Excel/PDFMaker.xla
Annoyance fixed!
UPDATE
The next time you launch Acrobat 6, you will get an error message asking to repair PDFMaker. Uncheck PDFMaker, check Don't show this again, and click Continue. That is the end of the annoyance.
UPDATE 2
The cat came back, the very next day! OK I have had it with this irritating #$&@! Right-Click on Acrobat 6 Pro and choose Show Package Contents Now go here: Contents/ MacOS/ SelfHealFiles/ and delete the PDFMaker folder. Do the exact same thing to Distiller 6. You may have to go into your Office folder and delete the 4 files outlined above.
IT IS NOW GONE FOR GOOD. It will not come back now. Adobe are you listening?!? THIS SHOULD BE AN OPTION.
UPDATE 3
This hint works in Office X & 2004 on Mac OS X, and now has been confirmed to work in Office 2003 Pro for Windows, thanks to the latest comment by Doug!
Be sure to read the other comments at my Breaking Windows post.
- Adobe Acrobat PDFMaker Toolbar in Office
- Published: August 03, 2004
- Type: News
- Section: Sci/Tech
- Filed Under: Sci/Tech: Software
- Writer: Ken Edwards
- Ken Edwards's BC Writer page
- Ken Edwards's personal site
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Comments
THANK YOU!!!! I wasted an hour trying to fix it until I did a simple Google search and found your site.
Adobe's customer support was most unhelpful on this issue. They are incredibly clueless. I mistakenly did a search on the Adobe website, and, as bad as their customer service is, their website support is even worse. Fortunately, this simple answer was here, and the problem is solved. Adobe, GET A CLUE!
i have a prob with office 2002 and pdfwriter 4.00
I don't know about Mac, but in Windows, if you print to PDF virtual printer, you don't get links (web links and links produced by cross-reference option) in your PDF, which you do if you use the toolbar. Possibly toolbar has other advantages, so IMO it's quite worthwhile.
Thank you. Thank you so much. THANK YOU!
All I can say is thank you. You are a genious. You are close to God. I could have saved 48 hours of time if I would have found your site earlier
There is a god! I like Adobe Products, well damn, I use them every day but that toolbar has to be the single worst bit of programming the adobe guys have EVER done (well, maybe short of PageMaker) But anyway, thank you!!!!!
THANK YOU!!!!!
Adobe clearly is just trying to keep their icons visible as some kind of marketing ploy, sacrificing the user experience as a result.
Thank heavens for your research on this.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!
AHHH, I CAN'T SAY IT ENOUGH....
THANK YOU!
You can add to your list a fifth file to delete :
username/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/PDFMaker
By the way, you can quicky get the list of all the five files to delete by typing "pdfmaker" in a Finder's window search box.
This hint has been extremely helpful. It has saved my from untold ire directed at that little horrible pdfmaker pallete. Thank you.
THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! for this PDF Maker removal tip. I did all the same things other users tried: deleting it from the Word Toolbar etc. I even tred fishing around the registry. Your tip did the trick.
Yes, to add to those before me, you are wonderful to have found out how to delete that pesky pdf maker thing on toolbars everywhere that are so very annoying and make my toolbars too long with no room for critical elements that I actually use. I was so glad to read your directions. Thanks.
another huge thank-you
you expressed my thoughts exactly
THANK YOU! This has got to be one of the most annoying word features eva!
THANK YOU! You have saved my Mac, because now I won't succumb to rage and inevitable smash it over my knee in misdirected fury.
Works with Adobe Acrobat Professional 7.0 and Microsoft Office 2004 too. Thanks for the hint (if only this stupid PDFMaker toolbar could be set to off or given a less annoying location ...)
Thank you for your confirmation that it is okay to delete these files. My files were in a different folder than you indicated. I did a search for "PDFMaker" as part of the file name in the Program Files folder. A whole slew of templates for MS Office came up and I deleted them all. What a relief to get rid of that message!
Thank you!
Thank you
I did delete all the pdfmaker files and that bloody toolbar has finally disappeared. As far as I am concerned, programming that was equivalent to theft. Desktop real estate is attention. Shame on Adobe for their cheap marketing ploy. They could have designed the icons so they fit neatly into another toolbar but, instead, chose to steal 3/8 of an inch from every user. Sad and second rate behavior from a good company.
Hate to be repetitous - but THANKYOU!
It makes me ridiculously happy to open Word and not have that annoying toolbar pop up and knock my document down the screen. :)
LOL... I'm amazed to find blogs, articles, and so many other people after a fix for this on the net. Quite nice have that stupid toolbar gone.
I thought there might be a documented fix *somewhere* but not this level of exposure. :)
Just like the rest of them, THANKS A MILLION!
I got so fed up with that stupid toolbar and now it's gone......GONE!!!!
Thanks again
Thank you so much!
I cannot understand how companies can get away with such deceitful practices.
Reminds me of the QuickTime systray icon:-)
Ahh, I hate that QT system tray icon. At least that was easier to disable! You just had to look in the Control Panel and switch it off.
You're great. I have spent hours to get rid of that stupid toolbar before reading your tips. Thank you so much.
Thanks - worked perfectly in Office X on OS 10.4.6
Thank you!
Thank you. The hint worked perfectly with Office 2004 and Adobe 7 Pro
To disable pdfmaker tool bar in Mac OSX Office 2004, here is ther easy option:
1. Open Acrobat
2. In the Help menu, select Detect & Repair
3. Un-check the box for the PDFMaker plug-in
4. Click OK.
If it still doesn't go away in Outlook/XP/Acrobat 7.0 (I could NOT get rid of it), two choices:
1) if you also have Acrobat 6.0:
in this folder:
[wherever]Program FilesAdobeAcrobat 7.0PDFMakerMailOutlook
Delete file: PDFMOutlook.dll
Go to this folder:
C:Program FilesAdobeAcrobat 6.0Acrobat
copy this file:
PDF417Encoder.dll
Into the 7.0 folder and rename to "PDFMOutlook.dll"
No errors in Outlook
No attempts by Adobe to fix/reinstall
2) 2nd choice: No Acrobat 6.0
Same as above, go delete PDFMOutlook.dll in 7.0 tree.
Create an empty text file, but rename it "PDFMOutlook.dll".
You'll get an error when you open outlook, but it's better than the Toolbar.
Thank you!
Finally got rid of that annoying toolbar. If it could only remember to stay out of the way, or allow me to toggle it on and off I would have kept it.
Sigh.
I found it extremely ridiculous to steal screen space on my limited macbook screen. I am so glad that I'm not the only person who hated this toolbar and is relieved to have it removed. I don't feel quite so anal anymore!
Thank you! I've been pissed at that thing for so long. I tried everything in Word to get rid of it. This was the first site on Google I tried. I know many people have said it, but I feel I need to: thank you!
Oh, man
You'll keep collecting thanks big time with this tip. It has made my office experience SO much better. THANK YOU!
My problem was with Outlook 2003.
The solution that worked for me, similar to Liz Fraley above:
- Go to [wherever]AdobeAcrobatPDFMakerMailOutlook files may be.
- Rename PDFMOutlook.dll to (1)PDFMOutlook.dll
- Next time you open Outlook 2004, Adobe will try to repair: cancel. It opens with no PDFMaker toolbar! It never asked to repair again.
Hope this helps.
Haha. Thanks, I knew I've done this in Windows, now I did it in Mac too.
This was a great comment. Thanks for taking the time. Worked like a charm.
Thanks much! Just wanted to make clear for others looking at this later that you have to get rid of all of the 4 listed files, as well as the folder in the update 2 at the top of the page and then you should be good.
This worked in Acrobat Professional 7 in Office X on Mac OS X 10.4.10.
Thanks, Ian
Thank you ever so much!!
You are my new and powerful god!
Thank you, thank you!!
I wish I'd found this 3 yrs ago when you wrote it....
Thanks for the hint. But in looking here for the solution, your tip pointed me toward this simpler solution in Office X:
Inside the Microsoft Office X folder are the subfolders Office > Startup.
Inside this Startup folder are additional subfolders for Excel, PowerPoint and Word.
Inside each is a file named pdfmaker.xxx. This file starts the pdfmaker toolbar.
The easy fix is to create a folder named "Disabled" in ...Microsoft Office X > Startup and move the file pdfmaker.xxx into it.
If you ever want the pdfmaker toolbar back, just return the pdfmaker.xxx file back into it's original location.
I hope this is helpful. Cheers!
THANK YOU!!
Thanks so much! $#%@ Adobe!
Switch to one of the excellent distros for any linux flavor and use one of the excellent PDF readers and editors therein.
90% of your troubles will disappear. And for the few occasional problems you have will be more easily solved by the helpful community of linux users and the many alternatives to Adobe and Microsoft products.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
Thank You
Could you please post instructions on how to do this in Office 2003 for Windows?



![Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Student and Teacher [OLD VERSION] Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Student and Teacher [OLD VERSION]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41RSK18P8TL._SY90_.jpg)


Annoying isnt it. Useless pesky PDF toolbar.
Thanks for the tip.