Microsoft's Edge browser will be getting a significant facelift in the coming months, thanks to Adobe.

The same week the giant software maker said it is bringing the hype-tastic ChatGPT AI tool to Edge (and Bing), it also announced it is replacing the fairly basic PDF reader currently built into the browser with a new one powered by Adobe's Acrobat PDF engine.

The decision is part of a larger plan between the two companies to bring Adobe technologies like e-signature and documentation automation to Microsoft users. Already Adobe PDF and e-sign technologies have been integrated into Microsoft 365, Teams, and SharePoint.

Now this is coming to Edge, with Adobe's PDF engine replacing the built-in engine that Edge, a Chromium-based browser, uses today.

"Bringing Adobe and Microsoft closer together is good for productivity and good for customers," Jared Spataro, corporate vice president of modern work and business applications at Microsoft, said in a statement. "Adobe's PDF technology in Microsoft Edge means users will have fast and secure access to critical digital document capabilities."

The idea is to bring the richer set of features in Adobe's Acrobat PDF engine to Edge, including higher fidelity for better colors and graphics, better performance, strong security, and more accessibility capabilities, such as better text selection and read-aloud narration. Those functions will be free to Windows 10 and 11 users.

However, if folks want more advanced features, it's going to cost money. Users will need to buy an Acrobat subscription if they want to be able to edit text and images, convert PDFs to other file formats, or combine files. Those who already have such subscriptions can use the Acrobat extension in Edge without spending more.

Microsoft made a particular point of outlining its efforts to ensure the new Adobe PDF tool is secure. Miscreants will use malware-infused PDFs to muscle their way into enterprise networks, so Microsoft's Edge Vulnerability Research team was involved in the process of bringing the Adobe engine to Edge.

That includes adding security features to the PDF stack such as PartitionAlloc a secure heap implementation developed on Chromium and already used in Edge, according to Gareth Evans, principal security research lead at Microsoft.

"PartitionAlloc is designed in such a way as to keep objects of different types separate from each other with minimal intervention from the developer," Evans wrote.

The package also includes mitigations such as Intel's Control Flow Enforcement Technology to protect against the hijacking of control-flow transfer instructions, a technology that complements Microsoft's Control Flow Guard. Fuzzing – automatic testing for vulnerabilities – is another security feature included with the new Edge PDF stack.

In addition, Edge's Acrobat engine will be included in the software vendor's bug bounty program to incentivize developers to find and report flaws. And there have been quite a few flaws in Adobe's PDF code.

The new Edge PDF offering will have all the capabilities that the current one does. Once the system is in place, users will see an Adobe brand mark in the bottom corner of the PDF view

"These users will also see an option to try the advanced features, such as converting PDFs, combining files, editing text and images," which will require the Acrobat subscription, Microsoft wrote.

Redmond is also rolling out the new Adobe-driven Edge PDF tool in phases. Consumers and others using unmanaged Windows 10 or 11 systems will see the change once it launches next month, with all such users having it in place by September.

Companies with managed devices can choose when to opt-in until September, giving them time to test their apps with the change in PDF engine. After that, they can opt out until March 2024, when the legacy Edge PDF engine is removed. ®

• Adobe Acrobat PDF capabilities are coming to Microsoft Edge.
• Microsoft Edge's built-in PDF reader will be powered by Adobe Acrobat tech, which should deliver more accurate colors and improved performance.
• Narration, improved text selection, and improved security will also be available within Edge's PDF reader.
• Purchasing an Acrobat subscription will provide access to more features within Edge through a browser extension.

Microsoft and Adobe just announced that the Adobe Acrobat PDF engine will come to Microsoft Edge later this year. Beginning in March 2023, Edge's built-in PDF reader will use the Adobe Acrobat PDF engine. Microsoft promised the shift would result in higher fidelity, more accurate colors and graphics, and improved security in its announcement post. The company also highlighted that the switch would bring better security and greater accessibility.

“PDF is essential for modern business, accelerating productivity in a world where automation and collaboration are more critical than ever,” said Adobe SVP and GM Ashley Still. “By bringing the global standard in PDF experience to Microsoft Edge and the billion-plus Windows users worldwide, Adobe and Microsoft are using our joint heritage and expertise in productivity to take an important step forward in making modern, secure, and connected work and life a reality.”

Microsoft promises that the features of the new Adobe-powered PDF experience will be the same as the current offering. Additional capabilities, such as editing text and images, and converting PDFs to other file formats, will be available to those that sign up for an Acrobat subscription.

The new PDF experience will be available in Edge on Windows 11 and Windows 10.

Microsoft will shift to the Adobe Acrobat engine in phase. The move is scheduled to occur in March 2023. The legacy engine will remain available until March 31, 2024. Switching to the Adobe Acrobat engine will be opt-in for organizations at first. General users will not have the option to revert to the legacy PDF engine after the Adobe Acrobat engine launches. Microsoft has an FAQ section plus other information in a Tech Community post.

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Microsoft Edge | Free

Microsoft Edge is the default browser on Windows. It's based on Chromium, so it's compatible with the vast majority of the web. There are several Insider versions of the browser, allowing you to test new features and provide feedback to Microsoft.

Microsoft has announced that it has natively embedded Acrobat PDF technology in its browser Edge. With this new addition, both Windows 11 and Windows 10 users will now get an enhanced PDF experience.

According to Microsoft:

Together, the two companies are updating the PDF experience and value users have come to expect in Microsoft Edge by powering the built-in PDF reader with the Adobe Acrobat PDF engine. This will provide users a unique PDF experience that includes higher fidelity for more accurate colors and graphics, improved performance, strong security for PDF handling, and greater accessibility—including better text selection and read-aloud narration. These capabilities will continue to be free of cost.

Users that are looking to make use of advanced features like the conversion of PDFs to other formats or combining files are encouraged to purchase an Acrobat subscription. The subscription will allow you to access these features within the Edge browser via an extension, meaning you don’t have to obtain the app separately.

If you currently have an active subscription you can leverage all these features within your Edge browser at no additional cost. Ultimately, enhancing the users’ productivity and providing “fast and secure access to critical digital document capabilities,” says Jared Spataro, Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President, Modern Work & Business Applications.

Adobe’s SVP and GM, Ashley Still further added that:

By bringing the global standard in PDF experience to Microsoft Edge and the billion-plus Windows users worldwide, Adobe and Microsoft are using our joint heritage and expertise in productivity to take an important step forward in making modern, secure, and connected work and life a reality

Microsoft has indicated that the transition to the built-in Microsoft Edge PDF reader with the Adobe Acrobat PDF rendering engine for organizations with managed devices will be gradual in order to meet their needs. The company plans to phase out the Microsoft Edge PDF solution with the legacy engine in March of next year.

This gives organizations a bit of time to make the transition, with an opt-in option. In related news, this is not the first time Microsoft is working closely with Adobe Acrobat. In fact, towards the end of last year, the company deeply integrated the Adobe Acrobat app into Teams.

Adobe and Microsoft have partnered to integrate the Adobe Acrobat PDF engine directly into the Edge browser, replacing the existing built-in PDF reader. Adobe says that this will provide users multiple benefits such as more accurate colours and graphics, improved performance, strong security for PDF handling, and greater accessibility.

Microsoft will soon make big visual changes to Edge on Windows 10 and 11 by making Adobe's Acrobat rendering engine the basis for the browser's built-in PDF reader and showing the Adobe brand in all PDF images. 

The Acrobat-powered Microsoft Edge will start rolling out to Windows 10 and 11 devices from March 2023, at which point enterprise customers gain an "opt-in" and an "opt-out" option for managed devices via Intune policy. 

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Users can't revert to the legacy PDF engine after the update, with the rollout scheduled for completion by September 2023. 

Microsoft plans to remove the legacy PDF engine from Chromium-based Edge on March 31, 2024, at which point the opt-out policy for enterprise customers ends, and all instances of Edge will have the Acrobat engine, according to a blogpost.  

The partnership brings Acrobat in Edge to 1.4 billion Windows 10 and 11 users, who will have the option to subscribe to more advanced Adobe PDF features like editing text and images in PDFs, converting PDFs to other file formats, and combining files. Subscriptions can be purchased via an Adobe extension for Edge, while existing Adobe subscribers will not be charged for using the Acrobat extension. 

"Bringing Adobe and Microsoft closer together is good for productivity and good for customers," Jared Spataro, corporate vice president of modern work and business applications at Microsoft, said in the announcement. 

"Adobe's PDF technology in Microsoft Edge means users will have fast and secure access to critical digital document capabilities."

The partnership is a major extension of the companies' existing multi-year partnership for cross-cloud productivity integrations, which so far haven't touched consumers that much. Last year, they released enterprise-focused integrations across Adobe Document Cloud and Microsoft Teams, including Adobe Sign in the Teams Approvals app, a live e-signature tool for Teams, and a Teams integration with Adobe Acrobat.

Microsoft says the Acrobat-powered Edge will have "full feature parity" with the legacy Microsoft Edge PDF reader and that "no functionality will be lost." Edge users can expect to see an "unobtrusive" Adobe brand mark in the bottom corner of the PDF view. 

It comes as Microsoft attempts to boost Edge's appeal among consumers with the newly integrated OpenAI ChatGPT capabilities in Edge and Bing. A sidebar in Edge has chat and compose features that let users ask Bing follow-up questions, and that get AI to compose posts on LinkedIn. Edge ships with Windows 11, but Chrome remains the dominant browser on Windows. Chrome has a 66% share on all desktops versus Edge's 10%, according to Statcounter Global Stats.   

Some Windows developers have raised questions about the impact on WebView2, Microsoft's tool for embedding web content in applications, which has PDF-printing capabilities. Microsoft employee Rick Turner reported that WebView2 "will start to point to the Adobe-powered stack when the time comes".  

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Turner explained the Adobe brand mark will only appear for those who haven't subscribed to Adobe: "The attribution mark to Adobe will not display if a person signs in with an Adobe Acrobat login and uses the extension. Also, for the free experience, if you have a large PDF or zoom in to the document, the attribution will go away due to no empty space on the screen." 

Turner claims that "using the free PDF experience with the Adobe engine will not allow Adobe to collect any data from you." 

Microsoft detailed some of the work it's done to secure the browser's PDF stack. It says the Microsoft Edge Vulnerability Research team was "heavily involved" in the process of bringing the Acrobat engine into Edge. This includes using security features developed by Google's Chromium team to mitigate C++-related memory flaws, including the relatively accurate add-ons for MiraclePtr and heap memory scanning, as well as PartitionAlloc, Chromium's memory allocator. All of these help mitigate memory flaws like use-after frees, but they also create a performance overhead.       

"This unique heap implementation provides a rapid understanding of vulnerabilities and a strong layer of protection that the new PDF stack will benefit from," Microsoft says. 

Microsoft also details its own contributions to Edge security mitigations. 

"Alongside PartitionAlloc, we ensured that a suite of additional technical countermeasures, also already used across Microsoft Edge, were compatible with the new PDF stack. This includes compile-time mitigations such as Intel's new Control Flow Enforcement Technology (CET), enabled in Microsoft Edge with update 94 for CPUs that support it. This complements Microsoft's own Control Flow Guard (CFG)."