In releases prior to Adobe Reader 9 it was very easy to configure. For example, Figure 1 shows how it appears in Adobe Reader 8 (which I've now reverted to).

Figure 1 - Show each document in its own window (Adobe Reader 8)

You simply uncheck the "Show each document in its own window" configuration option (circled in green in the illustration), and hey presto! When you restart Adobe Reader, the PDF documents all open inside a single Reader instance... Just what the doctor ordered.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen... Tragically (hamming it up a bit) this configuration item is nowhere to be found in Adobe Reader 9 preferences. It has gone, simply vanished into thin air. Talk about prestidigitation and legerdemain gone mad!

I'm totally gobstopped, bushwacked, bamboozled and perplexed as to why such a resourceful company as Adobe Systems has made this incredible blunder.

Did the absence of the feature in Adobe Reader 9 slip past their regression tests unnoticed? Did they decide for some strange reason to deprecate the feature and deigning not to mention so, in the hope that nobody would notice? Did they do it by design, or through sheer incompetence or negligence? Pray tell, Adobe Systems, pray tell.

By sheer coincidence, not all that long before the new release I blogged about some related issues. Please refer to Some basic usability features missing from Adobe Reader in which I point out some similar usability matters that I though Adobe Systems should address in the interests of making life better for power users like myself who use Adobe Reader heavily. I tried to contact them, but couldn't discover any support telephone number to call. So I left a link to this latter blog posting in the hope that they'd take heed of it -- fat chance!

In light of the above, is all lost? Not at all, as it turns out. Please read on to find out why.