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.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - N/A
Annoying isnt it. Useless pesky PDF toolbar.
Thanks for the tip.
2 - Bob
THANK YOU!!!! I wasted an hour trying to fix it until I did a simple Google search and found your site.
3 - Lunatik
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!
4 - sharaf
i have a prob with office 2002 and pdfwriter 4.00
5 - Krofojed
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.
6 - Ryan
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
7 - b1
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!!!!!
8 - Sean Kelly
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.
9 - Josh Bryant
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!
AHHH, I CAN'T SAY IT ENOUGH....
THANK YOU!
10 - Francois
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.
11 - Geoffrey Buhl
This hint has been extremely helpful. It has saved my from untold ire directed at that little horrible pdfmaker pallete. Thank you.
12 - I Hate Adobe!
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.
13 - shakira
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.
14 - jk
another huge thank-you
you expressed my thoughts exactly
15 - bryan
THANK YOU! This has got to be one of the most annoying word features eva!
16 - Jason
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.
17 - Donald
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 ...)
18 - Carrie Cohill
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!
19 - JB Peterson
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.
20 - Karina
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. :)
21 - Stuart
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. :)
22 - Chris
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
23 - John Daniels
Thank you so much!
I cannot understand how companies can get away with such deceitful practices.
Reminds me of the QuickTime systray icon:-)
24 - Ken Edwards
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.
25 - Mehmet
You're great. I have spent hours to get rid of that stupid toolbar before reading your tips. Thank you so much.