Fix Adobe Acrobat: PDF Pages Appearing with Yellow Background Color

Computers are used everywhere and so does PDF files. PDF stands for Portable Document Format and is an industry norm to use this format when sharing files over the internet. In some cases, due to the internal settings of your PDF reader, the background color may appear yellow, green, or grey as per your preferences. Let us discussed below how to fix the situation if PDF Pages Appearing with Yellow Background Color on your computer.

Recently many people have reported that the pdf pages have a yellow background when opening it with Adobe Acrobat reader. This issue has been faced by many people using either Windows or Mac OS. The issue is that the file which was perfectly fine last day suddenly has some yellowish background.

When we investigated this issue, it appears to be a bug in the recent updates for Adobe Acrobat. Because, the file appears to have no issues, and when printing, it doesn’t show up any yellow pages. So in this article let’s see how you can fix the issue.

Fix Adobe Acrobat: PDF Pages Appearing with Yellow Background Color

If the PDF file you’re reading is having some issues, then it will show the same error to everyone. However many PDF editors or viewer programs have custom settings that can help you to change the background color, highlight texts, and even take notes inside the PDF file. Down below are few troubleshooting fixes which you can follow to fix this issue easily.

Fix 1: Disable Accessibility settings

There are accessibility settings in Adobe that can display solid backgrounds instead of the original background of the pdf file. Let’s see how you can disable it.

1. Open the pdf file using Adobe Acrobat.
2. Now click on Edit and select Preferences.
3. Under the Accessibility tab, put a tick on “Replace Document color”.
4. Also, make sure to put a tick mark on “Use Windows color schemes”.
5. Now finally close the app, and reopen it to check the issue is resolved.

Although only a few people found this solution to be helpful. So if this did not solve it for you then don’t worry, we have got some other solutions.

Fix 2: Try opening the file using a different program

As discussed earlier, the issue seems to be with the latest updates for Adobe Acrobat. So to check this fact, let’s try opening the pdf file using a different program.

But most modern browsers are capable of opening Adobe PDF files.

1. Open your favorite browser.
2. Now open the location of the pdf file on your File Explorer.
3. Simply drag and drop the file into the browser to open it.

Check if there is still a yellowish background, if not, then you should try using this method. But if there is a yellow background, it should mean that the file itself has a yellow background.

Tip: You can right-click on the pdf file, select Open With and then select a browser to open the file with the browser. If you want to open all your files directly on the browser, simply select another program, and select a browser but remember to put a tick mark on “Always use”.

Fix 3: Wait for an Adobe Update

Since there are many people facing this issue Worldwide, Adobe is well aware of this issue. So you should expect a patch update to solve the issue soon. So you can try waiting for an update to arrive and until then you can temporarily use a browser to open your pdf files.

Although we would not recommend using an older version, since an older version will create some security issues. The best practice now would be to wait for an update and when it is available, Adobe will automatically download and install it for you assuming you haven’t disabled automatic updates.

Fix 4: Using a Web browser PDF files

As already mentioned, you can use browsers like Edge, Chrome, or Firefox to open pdf files without any issues. Although if you are a paid Adobe user who utilizes functions like PDF editing or Merging, then you will not be able to do it on the browser. The browser can only help you to view the PDF file as-is. Additionally, you will also not be able to verify the digital signature present on the pdf files. So if you are a person who works mostly with signed pdf files then it is a no-go for you.

Although, if you think about the issue, it has been issued only with displaying files. This means the actual background of the file is not yellowish. So if you send out the documents to others then chances are that they will not have the issue at all. But don’t take our words for it. Try yourself by sending out a copy of one of your colleagues if you are allowed to send it out.

Conclusion

So as you can see, there are no quick solutions for the issue of the yellow pages with adobe reader. Although since the issue is within the app itself, and we can only wait for Adobe to release the next updated version to solve the issue. After some deep digging, we also were able to conclude that the issue can also be found on some other Adobe products, like Photoshop for example. Until then you should have no issues using a web browser.