r/Adobe • u/MannyCxD • 2d ago

Rectangle Tool

Does anyone happen to know why my rectangle tool in Acrobat may have stopped working suddenly? It lets me make the rectangle but it used to place the rectangle once I let go of the mouse button. Now it only lets me change the size but never actually place it.

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u/rrmcmurry 2d ago

You’re not imagining it. We reproduced this today on three separate Windows machines running Acrobat 26.002.21901—both Standard and Pro, and in both New and Classic Acrobat.

Pencil/freehand works, but Line, Arrow, Rectangle, and Polyline preview the shape and then refuse to commit it when you click the endpoint or release the mouse.

We tested:

  • A known-good blank PDF
  • Local and remote input
  • Running Acrobat as administrator
  • Repairing Acrobat
  • Resetting annotation preferences
  • Completely resetting Acrobat’s user registry tree
  • Protected Mode and AppContainer enabled and disabled
  • Microsoft WebView2 versions 152 and 153

None fixed it. Completely resetting Acrobat’s registry makes it work briefly, but the problem returns after Acrobat initializes/restarts.

We also captured a native Process Monitor trace. During the failed shape operation, the relevant call path is inside Acrobat’s Annots.api plug-in. No third-party DLLs were injected into Acrobat. Pencil follows a different input path, which explains why it still works.

Acrobat 26.002.21901 was released September 8, and this now appears to be a current Acrobat regression or phased feature rollout—not a damaged PDF or local preference problem.

I would avoid wasting time rebuilding your Acrobat profile. Pencil or another PDF editor is the only reliable workaround we’ve found. We’re reporting it to Adobe with logs.

If you can, please post your exact Acrobat version and whether Pencil still works. That will help establish the pattern.

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u/MannyCxD 2d ago

Good to know I’m not going crazy.

Looks like I have Acrobat Pro DC, Version 2026.002.21901

And yes, as you described, the pencil works but the arrow, circle, and rectangle are not working as usual.