Microsoft Teams update will finally fix this annoying PDF issue

Microsoft Teams
(Image credit: Shutterstock / monticello)

Accessing PDF files in Microsoft Teams should soon be a lot easier thanks to a new update for the video conferencing platform.

Microsoft has announced it is working on making the PDF experience much smoother for users of the popular Adobe Acrobat tool.

Namely, Microsoft Teams admins will soon be able to set Adobe Acrobat as the default PDF editor app, removing the annoying headaches and frustrations currently caused each time a user needs to open one of the files.

Microsoft Teams and Adobe Acrobat

In its entry on the official Microsoft 365 roadmap, the update is still set as being in development, with an expected public launch of September 2022. 

Microsoft notes that the change will allow admins to tweak the current PDF preferences in the Teams admin center, allowing users to view and edit files using Adobe Acrobat as the default.

The company notes that it hopes to have a preview of the update ready for this month, and will launch the tool across all Microsoft Teams users on Mac, Web and desktop versions of the platform.

The news is the latest productivity update added to Microsoft Teams as the company looks to ensure it remains a useful hybrid working tool.

This includes the recent addition of updates largely aimed around improving the audio quality on Microsoft Teams calls using AI and machine learning.

In what will be welcome news for many Microsoft Teams users, the new updates, the result of using a machine learning model trained on 30,000 hours of speech samples, include echo cancellation, better adjusting audio in poor acoustic environments, and allowing users to speak and hear at the same time without interruptions.

The company is also reportedly aiming to bring so-called "Microsoft Teams 2.0" to enterprise devices soon, having previously only limited it to consumer accounts.

Directly integrated into Windows 11's new Chat app, Microsoft Teams 2.0 supports calling, messaging, audio controls, meeting management and native Windows notifications, and also now lets users resize windows and quote replies directly from the conversation tab.

Mike Moore
Deputy Editor, TechRadar Pro

Mike Moore is Deputy Editor at TechRadar Pro. He has worked as a B2B and B2C tech journalist for nearly a decade, including at one of the UK's leading national newspapers and fellow Future title ITProPortal, and when he's not keeping track of all the latest enterprise and workplace trends, can most likely be found watching, following or taking part in some kind of sport.