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FAQ: Adobe Workspaces is being retired

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Thu, 23 Oct 2014 15:36:40 GMT

Jump to: Using the new Acrobat.com to store your content

Why is Adobe retiring Workspaces?

Adobe Workspaces, including Buzzword, Tables, and Presentation, will be retired on January 6, 2015. Adobe is exiting the document authoring business for word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation files. Our focus will be to continue to provide world-class PDF creation and conversion products and services that enable our customers to take actions on their files anywhere on any device. You may continue to upload, store, and share your files at https://cloud.acrobat.com.

What are my other options for storing documents in the cloud?

Even though Workspaces is being retired, Adobe is still offering cloud storage; the Acrobat.com service allows you to upload, store, share, and preview your files; organize your documents into multi-level folders; and more features to come. You can also access other Adobe online document services from Acrobat.com, such as Adobe PDF Pack and Adobe ExportPDF. Sign in with your Adobe ID (the same information you currently use for Workspaces) at https://cloud.acrobat.com

Why did I receive the email that Workspaces is being retired?

We sent the notification email to everyone who used his or her Adobe ID to log into Workspaces at any time since January 1, 2013. The notification email was also sent to you if you signed up for certain other services (such as CS Review) that have at one time or another been associated with Workspaces. If you are not an active Workspaces user, you may disregard the notice. We apologize for any confusion.

When will Workspaces be retired?

On January 6, 2015. Please download or delete any documents you currently have stored there before that time.

What will happen to my files and workspaces if I don't download them?

Any files that you have stored in Workspaces will no longer be available to you as of January 6, 2015. All Workspaces data will be permanently destroyed; if you would like to retain the content you have stored in your Workspaces account, please download your files.

How do I convert and download individual files?

For most files, you can simply select them and then choose 'Download.'

For Buzzword documents, Tables, and Presentations, open the file and select Export from the File (or Presentation) menu.

For Buzzword documents, you can export them in several different formats: PDF, Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx), Rich Text Format (.rtf), HTML, plain text (.txt), OpenDocument format (.odt) or EPUB (.epub). Note that if you would like to continue to edit your Buzzword documents after you download them, you should select a format other than PDF.
Tables can be exported as PDF, Microsoft Excel files (.xls), or Comma Separated Values (.csv).
Presentations can be exported as PDF.

For more detailed information on exporting, downloading, and printing files, please see this help document: http://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat-com/help/export-save-print-documents.html

How do I download all of my content at once?

To download all of your content in one go, just click the big red button in your Workspaces account. When you log into your account at https://workspaces.acrobat.com, you'll see the red button in your organizer marked "Download Files". Clicking that button will package all of your Workspaces content into a ZIP file, maintaining the folder structure you used in your Workspaces.

If your Workspaces content takes up more than 2GB of space, Workspaces won't be able to zip up your files for download. To fix this, you can do one of two things:

Delete files that you no longer need to lessen the total size of your workspace.
Divide your content into multiple workspaces and download these smaller workspaces one at a time.

Buzzword documents will be automatically converted into Microsoft Word documents and Tables will be converted into Excel files.

Please note that if you have any presentation files that you created in Presentations (the Beta product in Workspaces that allowed you to create slideshows) will not be included in the bulk download; those files have to be exported individually to PDF. Here are instructions on how to download those files one by one.

I clicked on the red Download Files button, but I still haven’t gotten the email with instructions and links to my Workspaces files.

When you click the big red button to download all your files from Workspaces, your content will be packaged up into ZIP files (one per Workspace) and you’ll receive an email with a link to download those ZIP files. Depending on how much content you have stored in your Workspaces account and how many requests are being processed simultaneously, this may take only a couple of minutes, or it may take a while longer; please be patient. You can also check your spam filter for the email from Workspaces. If you still haven’t received the email after a day, you can click the big red button in your Workspaces account again. Workspaces will ask you if you want to download the existing package of content and will offer you a direct link to the download page.

I just got an email containing the link(s) to my zipped Workspaces content. How long will the link(s) be valid?

The ZIP file(s) that Workspaces create from your content (and the link that you receive via email after hitting the red Download Files button) will be valid for 30 days, starting from the day you requested the files. If you do not download your files within that timeframe, the link and the files will expire and you’ll have to sign back into your Workspaces account and click that big red button again; this should generate a new email with new links to download your content.

I can't open one/several of the PDF files I just downloaded from Workspaces. Why not?

If two (or more) of your PDF files in Workspaces had the same name, whichever of those files was downloaded second (or third, or fourth) will have an edited file name. For instance, if you had two PDF files and both were named "Paris.pdf", the first one will be downloaded to your computer as "Paris.pdf" and the second one as "Paris.pdf (1)." In order to open that second file on your computer, please rename that file to something that ends in ".pdf" - in our example, we might rename the second file to "Paris1.pdf" to differentiate it from the other file.

I clicked on the "Download Existing Package” button in the “Files Previously Requested” dialog, but nothing happened! What can I do?

This will happen if you have popup windows blocked in your browser. Unfortunately, some browsers (e.g. Safari) do not notify the user that a popup window has been blocked and give you the option to allow it. You can either use a different browser, or you can enable popups in your browser.

How do I delete my files/workspaces?

Files and workspaces can be deleted (if you have permission) or removed. Deleting a file that you created or uploaded will remove it from your workspace as well as from the workspace of anyone with whom you shared the document. Removing a file or workspace removes it from your account, but not from others’; this will be the case for files that were shared with you by others. In a Shared Workspace, you can delete the files that you authored or added, but not those that were authored by collaborators; it’s also impossible to remove individual files from Shared Workspaces.

To delete or remove an individual file, hover over the file in your organizer and click on the context menu that appears to the right of the filename. The last item on the list will be to delete or remove the file. You may be asked to confirm the action; click OK to permanently delete the document. You can use this same process to delete or remove a workspace; if you are the original workspace creator, you will be able to delete the workspace. If you are simply part of a shared workspace, you will be able to remove yourself from the workspace.

Please note: If you have shared any files or workspaces with collaborators, we recommend alerting them to the fact that these files and workspaces are being deleted before you permanently remove the content from Adobe Workspaces.

I use Workspaces to collect comments for Shared Reviews in Adobe Acrobat. What will happen to Shared Reviews?

For Acrobat XI, X and 9 users, when you select “Send for Shared Review” in your Acrobat software, the option to download and track comments with Adobe online services will no longer be available. You will still be able to initiate Shared Reviews from within Acrobat using your own internal server – such as a SharePoint workspace, a network folder, or a web server folder – to collect comments.

I use Workspaces to distribute my PDF forms from Adobe Acrobat. Will I still be able to distribute my forms with Acrobat.com?

For Acrobat X & 9 users, when you Select “Distribute” from the Forms tool pane in your Acrobat software, you will no longer see the option to distribute your form with Acrobat.com. You will still be able to distribute your form via email or your own internal server. You can also try Adobe FormsCentral, our cloud-based forms service that lets you create PDF or web forms in minutes and see results in real time.

I use Workspaces with my Captivate software for posting content and for tracking & reporting. Will I still be able to do so?

The option to upload content and track results in Captivate with Workspaces [Acrobat.com] will be retired. At this time we have no alternative solution, but the Captivate team is actively looking for one. Stay tuned.

How do I upload/store files at the new Acrobat.com?

If you would like to begin storing your files at Acrobat.com (https://cloud.acrobat.com), you can begin by logging in at https://cloud.acrobat.com. You can use the same login information (your Adobe ID and associated password) that you use for Workspaces. Once you’ve logged in, look to the upper right corner of your browser window; there you’ll see a menu for managing your account (click on your name or Adobe ID to find it), and just below it there are three icons: click the first to upload a document, the second to create a new folder, and the third to access sorting, filtering, and viewing options.

I already use Acrobat.com [https://cloud.acrobat.com] to store my files; will I be affected when Workspaces is retired?

If you use Acrobat.com [https://cloud.acrobat.com], your documents and service will be unaffected. If you have any documents or files stored in Workspaces [http://workspaces.acrobat.com], those files will be deleted on January 6, 2015.

I've moved some of my Workspaces documents to Acrobat.com [https://cloud.acrobat.com]. Why can't I keep editing them?

Acrobat.com allows you to store, share, and access your documents from multiple platforms through a web browser or the Adobe Reader desktop and mobile apps. You can store, read, share, or download files at Acrobat.com, but you cannot edit them there. To continue to edit your files, please download them to your computer and open them with the appropriate application. While we do plan on adding plenty of features to Acrobat.com over the next weeks and months, we will no longer offer document authoring services and recommend that you find an alternative service for collaborative document authoring in the cloud.

Visit our other document services:

Store files and share on Acrobat.com
Send large files with Adobe Send
Create PDF, combine PDF, and export PDF files to other formats with Adobe PDF Pack
Create professional HTML and PDF forms easily with Adobe FormsCentral

Embedded documents: How they'll look after January 6, 2015

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Mon, 13 Oct 2014 14:37:59 GMT

If you have hosted documents from Workspaces and embedded them on blogs, websites, or elsewhere around the internet, those preview widgets will no longer show your documents once Workspaces is permanently retired on January 6, 2015. For your reference, Figure 2 (below) shows how those widgets will appear once your content has been removed from Workspaces:

Figure 1: An embedded PDF document, published from Workspaces using its unique embed code.

Figure 2: What will appear when the document has been removed from Workspaces (as all files will be as of January, 6, 2015). The embed code is still published on this page, but there is no existing document on Workspaces to reference, so the widget only shows the following message.

Seeing errors while downloading your content?

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Tue, 27 May 2014 13:19:41 GMT

If you're a Workspaces customer, you should already know that Workspaces is retiring as of January 6, 2015. Now that there's a bulk download tool available to you when you sign in, you should be able to grab all of your existing workspaces as a big ol' ZIP file. If you've started that process, you may have encountered one of the following error messages; not to fear, you can still download your content. Here’s a little more information on how to proceed with your downloads when you see one of these messages:

The following presentations were not downloaded.
The following files were not downloaded.
Workspace "___" is too large to be downloaded.

The following presentations were not downloaded.

Your Presentations need to be downloaded individually as PDF files. Here's how to do that:

Open the presentation in your Workspace that you need to download.
Click the “Presentation” menu in the upper right corner.
Choose “Export...”

The following files were not downloaded.

If you see this message, it’s because Workspaces could not include one or more of your files in the download of the rest of the workspace. To download individual files, here’s what to do:

Buzzword documents

Open the document you need to download.
Click the “Document” menu in the upper right corner.
Choose “Export…”
From here, you’ll have a few different options: you can export your Buzzword documents to PDF, to Word (.doc or .docx), text formats (.rtf or .txt), EPUB (.epub), OpenDocument format (.odt), or as a zipped HTML file (.ZIP).

Tables

Open the table you need to download.
Click the “Table” menu in the upper right corner.
Choose “Export…”
From here, you’ll have a few different options: you can export your Tables files to PDF, to Excel (.xls), or CSV (.csv).

Other files

These instructions will work for PDF files, image files, Microsoft office files, and other documents that you have stored in your Workspaces account.

From your organizer, select the file you’d like to download.
Open the drop-down menu to the right of the file name.
Select “Download”.
Workspaces will ask you to choose the location on your computer where you’d like to save the file.

Workspace "___" is too large to be downloaded.

You’ll see this error message if the workspace you’re trying to download is too large. To split the workspace into one or more smaller workspaces, please try the following:

First, find out which documents in the workspace are the largest. You can do this by sorting files according to size:
1. Viewing the workspace, look at the top of the page; you’ll see a few different buttons for sorting your files.
2. Click the t-shirt icon on the far right to organize by size.
3. Workspaces will show you files that are Huge, Large, Medium, Small, and Tiny.
4. You may want to consider downloading any “Huge” files independently of the rest of the workspace; once you’ve downloaded some of the more sizable documents, delete them and try downloading the workspace again.
If that doesn’t help you download the rest of the workspace, you can create a new workspace in which to deposit some of the larger files for bulk download:
1. Click the “New” menu in the upper left corner.
2. Choose “Shared Workspace”
3. Move the files of your choosing into the new workspace by dragging and dropping them from the old workspace.
4. If there are other members of the original shared workspace, remember to add them to this one, as well! They may want to continue to access this content and download it to their own computers.
Continue the above process(es) until the workspaces are small enough to be downloaded.

If you have any questions about downloading your material from your Workspaces account, please let us know by posting in the Workspaces retirement forum.