Do you still need Adobe Acrobat if your company runs Microsoft 365?

What Microsoft 365 already does with PDFs

The table lists what Microsoft documents for work accounts; each app has its own conditions.

On Windows, Edge’s reader runs on Adobe’s engine, but it is not Acrobat. Microsoft announced in February 2023 that Edge’s built-in reader on Windows 10 and 11 would use the Adobe Acrobat PDF engine, keeping viewing free, while users who wanted to edit text and images, convert PDFs to other formats or combine files in Edge could buy an Acrobat subscription.

Test any XFA forms your staff receive before removing their current PDF software, with PDFXFAEnabled switched on if you plan to rely on it.

Where Microsoft 365 stops and Acrobat starts

Each row is a PDF task, what Microsoft documents for it, and whether Adobe’s business plan comparison lists it from Acrobat Standard or only from Acrobat Pro. It covers only tasks where Microsoft 365 falls short, not every Acrobat feature. Adobe sells other Acrobat plans as well, and each quotation confirms which plans are available through Adobe’s Value Incentive Plan (VIP) in the UAE.

Sources: the Microsoft pages below and Adobe’s business plan comparison as adobe.com shows it to UAE visitors, checked 8 October 2026. Adobe changes plan contents from time to time; for current plans and quotes, see licensing Acrobat for your team in the UAE.

Read the redaction row carefully. It covers only the Edge, Word and OneDrive PDF features in Microsoft’s documentation. Ink or a box over text is mark-up, not redaction, so check that removed details can no longer be selected, searched or copied. Microsoft Purview eDiscovery is the exception: it can redact documents inside an eDiscovery review set and export them as redacted PDFs, for legal and compliance cases on licences that include it rather than everyday documents.

AI features. Microsoft 365 Copilot and Acrobat AI Assistant, which Adobe includes in Acrobat Studio and also sells as an add-on, both work on documents. Where they process files is a governance decision in its own right, so evaluate them separately.

Matching each role to Microsoft 365 or an Acrobat seat

The list below is PRO TECHnology’s starting point for a typical office, not a vendor rule; confirm each line with the pilot described below.

• Front desk, administration and most office staff. Read, annotate and print PDFs, fill in simple forms, save letters as PDF. Start with Microsoft 365 only.
• Sales and account management. Quotations and proposals made in Word or PowerPoint, sometimes joined with brochures. Microsoft 365 for most; Acrobat Standard for anyone who regularly edits and assembles proposal packs.
• Human resources. Offer letters and policies created in Word, signatures from new joiners, personnel files holding copies of identity documents. Acrobat Standard for editing, with signatures through Acrobat or Microsoft 365 eSignature (see the signing section); Acrobat Pro for whoever must redact personal data before files are shared.
• Finance and accounts. Statements, audit packs and scanned supplier invoices. Acrobat Standard for combining and converting; Acrobat Pro where the scanned files themselves must become searchable, editable PDFs.
• Legal and contracts. Comparing contract drafts, redacting before disclosure, reviewing signed copies. Acrobat Pro; where disclosure already runs through Microsoft Purview eDiscovery, redaction can happen there.
• Procurement and tenders. Assembling submissions from many files, completing supplier forms, collecting signatures. Acrobat Standard, after testing any XFA forms you receive.
• Marketing and document production. Print-ready files checked against PDF/X, and fillable forms for events and campaigns. Acrobat Pro for whoever checks print files; Acrobat Standard is enough for staff who only build forms.
• Compliance and records. PDF/A archives, accessibility checks on published documents, redaction for disclosure requests. Acrobat Pro, although Purview eDiscovery can redact within its own cases.

Labelling PDFs is not, on its own, a reason to give someone an Acrobat seat: Microsoft 365 can label PDFs too, as the section on sensitive PDFs explains.

Staff who mark up PDFs by hand all day may prefer a pen to a mouse; see our guide to pen displays for handwritten PDF mark-up.

Putting Acrobat where staff open PDFs: Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive and Edge

Microsoft Teams

A Teams administrator can make the Adobe Acrobat app the default PDF viewer in Teams (Microsoft Learn, last updated 29 May 2026): allow the app in the Teams admin center under Manage apps, accept its permissions, then add it to the Global (Org-wide default) app setup policy. To allow it for selected people or groups only, Microsoft points to app permission policies. The app can take a few hours to reach users.

• Viewing, searching, commenting and annotating need no Acrobat plan, while premium tools such as Export PDF, Combine Files, Compress PDF and Protect PDF do. Microsoft’s page does not make clear whether users must first sign in with an Adobe account, so test this in your tenant.
• It works in the Teams desktop and web clients only, not on mobile, and PDFs pinned as channel tabs or held in the Assignments app still open in the Teams native viewer.
• Once Acrobat is the handler, PDFs clicked in Teams open inside Teams; to use a desktop app, users download the file first.
• Microsoft lists it for Commercial environments only, not for the US government clouds it calls GCC, GCC High and DoD.

SharePoint and OneDrive

Adobe’s help page for Acrobat for SharePoint and OneDrive (updated 1 April 2026) says an administrator deploys the app from the Microsoft 365 admin center to selected users or groups, or to all users, making Acrobat the default PDF viewer there. Adobe also says the app cannot later be removed for selected users or groups, only for the whole tenant; that Microsoft’s caching can delay installation or removal by up to 48 hours; and that users can install it themselves from AppSource, which shares their contact information with Adobe for marketing, while a tenant-wide admin install shares none.

Microsoft Edge

Edge keeps its own reader, which by default shows a button inviting users to subscribe to Adobe’s premium tools through the Acrobat extension. Disabling the Edge policy ShowAcrobatSubscriptionButton (Edge 111 and later, Windows and macOS; Microsoft Learn, last updated 22 May 2026) hides the button, so staff are not offered Adobe subscriptions inside the PDF viewer.

For Acrobat Sign inside Word, Outlook or Teams, and for Adobe Admin Console setup, see our Adobe licensing guide.

Sensitive PDFs: labels, protection and where files are stored

Sensitivity labels carry over from Office

Microsoft documents what happens to a Purview sensitivity label when Word, Excel or PowerPoint create a PDF (page dated 30 June 2026). The PDF inherits the label and any content markings, and on Windows it also inherits the label’s encryption. Encrypted PDFs open in Edge on Windows or Mac.

• Supported routes: Save As, Export and Send a Copy as PDF in Office for Windows, with equivalent routes in Office for iOS, Android and the web; Office for Mac is not listed.
• Print to PDF is not supported. Users are warned that the file will lose the label’s protection and must confirm before continuing.
• PDF/A cannot be produced when the label applies encryption, and the separate encrypt-with-password option is unavailable for such documents.

Labelling PDFs that did not come from Office

Microsoft’s SharePoint and OneDrive labelling page says that once an administrator adds PDF support, users can label PDFs stored there, library default labels and auto-labelling policies can label them, and search, eDiscovery and data loss prevention can inspect them; it also notes that sensitivity labels do not support signed PDFs. On Windows, the file labeler in the Microsoft Purview Information Protection client applies labels and encryption to PDFs from File Explorer.

Edge opens PDFs protected by Microsoft Purview Information Protection within your tenant and across business tenants. Adobe’s help page (updated 15 September 2026) says Acrobat Pro and Standard desktop can apply and edit sensitivity labels on PDFs, and Acrobat Pro, Standard and Reader desktop can open protected PDFs, all through Microsoft’s Information Protection software development kit (MIP SDK) between your environment and Microsoft’s cloud; Adobe says it does not receive the protected content.

Whichever reader you standardise on, keep it current: our endpoint management guide covers keeping PDF readers patched alongside browsers.

Where the files are stored

Microsoft lists the United Arab Emirates as a local region geography for Microsoft 365, with data centres in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and data residency commitments for Exchange Online, SharePoint and OneDrive, Teams and Microsoft 365 Copilot. That does not mean every UAE company’s data is held there: Microsoft sets a tenant’s default geography from the country entered at sign-up, says it cannot be changed afterwards, and moves data already stored elsewhere into a local region only through the Advanced Data Residency add-on or Multi-Geo.

To check yours, an administrator opens the Microsoft 365 admin center, goes to Settings, then Org settings, and reads Data location on the organisation profile tab.

Adobe’s Document Cloud hosting page (dated 2 October 2026) says Acrobat is hosted on AWS in locations including North America, Europe and Japan, and that Acrobat user content is stored in Adobe Enterprise Storage; it names no Middle East location. With the Acrobat app as the SharePoint and OneDrive viewer, Adobe’s help page says viewing, commenting and searching happen locally, while create, organise, combine and export actions are processed temporarily on Adobe Document Cloud servers and deleted within 24 hours. Share both pages with your compliance team if your data policy limits where documents are processed.

Signing PDFs: Microsoft 365 eSignature or Acrobat

Microsoft 365 has its own signing service, eSignature. Microsoft’s overview (last updated 8 August 2026) says it sends PDFs and Word documents for signature to people inside and outside the organisation, keeps an audit trail, and uses “simple electronic signatures as defined under applicable law”.

• An administrator must link an Azure subscription for pay-as-you-go billing and set up eSignature in the Microsoft 365 admin center before anyone can send a request.
• External signers who are not already guests need Microsoft Entra B2B integration for SharePoint and OneDrive, with guest sharing turned on.
• Sent, viewed, signed and completed requests are logged in the Purview Audit log.
• Signing Word documents is limited to the Beta, Current and Monthly Enterprise update channels.
• Microsoft lists the service as available worldwide except Indonesia. For PDFs in SharePoint, Microsoft also lets requests start through other signature providers, including Adobe Acrobat Sign.

Acrobat Standard and Pro include e-signatures of their own: Adobe’s plan comparison lists collecting e-signatures and tracking responses in both. Which tool fits depends on volume, the signature level needed and where signed records should live. Whether a signature is legally adequate for a document is a question for your legal adviser; our guide to Acrobat Sign and the UAE e-signature law summarises the law.

How to test which staff can work in Microsoft 365 only

A short pilot settles the question with your own documents. The steps below are PRO TECHnology’s suggested method.

1. Compare who holds an Acrobat licence with where Acrobat is actually installed. Our guide to managing Acrobat licences for your team covers where licences live, and an inventory lets you check which computers have Acrobat installed; an installation proves neither use nor entitlement.
2. Ask each team for the PDF jobs it did in the last month and sort them with the task table above into Microsoft 365, Acrobat Standard and Acrobat Pro jobs.
3. Map each person to the role list as a first guess, and flag anyone who handles labelled, personal or legally sensitive PDFs for a closer look.
4. Choose a pilot group whose jobs all sit in the Microsoft 365 column and have them work without Acrobat for an agreed period, such as 30 days, logging every job they could not finish.
5. Review the log. A job that recurs moves that person to Standard or Pro; a rare one can often go to a colleague who keeps a seat.
6. Set the mix of Standard and Pro seats, then use our remote deployment guide for rolling Acrobat out to company computers in stages.
7. If Acrobat leaves most computers, consider disabling Edge’s Acrobat subscription button so staff are not prompted to buy their own.

Where PRO TECHnology fits

PRO TECHnology is an authorised Adobe reseller in the UAE and has been working with Adobe since 2004, starting with a dealership agreement for the advertising and printing industry. Once you know your mix, our Enterprise IT division prepares the quotation and UAE tax invoice, places the order, handles add-ons and renewals, and helps set up the Adobe Admin Console.

This guide describes Microsoft 365 only as Microsoft documents it; our part is Acrobat licensing and Admin Console setup. Schools and universities should start with our page on Acrobat for schools and universities. For users in Saudi Arabia or elsewhere in the GCC, ask us first: Adobe VIP Marketplace licences must be bought for the country where the users live.

Sources

We checked every Microsoft and Adobe page below, and those linked in the text, on 8 October 2026. Both vendors change features, plan contents and policy defaults often, so recheck a row before acting on it.

• Microsoft Learn: PDF reader in Microsoft Edge
• Microsoft Edge blog: Adobe Acrobat PDF engine in Microsoft Edge (8 February 2023)
• Microsoft Support: Edit a PDF (Word)
• Microsoft Support: Save or convert to PDF or XPS in Office desktop apps
• Microsoft Learn: Features available for PDFs in OneDrive
• Microsoft Learn: Merge and extract PDF files
• Microsoft Learn: Overview of optical character recognition (SharePoint and OneDrive)
• Microsoft Learn: Adobe Acrobat as a default PDF viewer in Teams
• Microsoft Learn: Sensitivity labels in Office apps (PDF support)
• Microsoft Learn: Enable sensitivity labels for files in SharePoint and OneDrive
• Microsoft Learn: Overview of eSignature
• Microsoft Learn: Microsoft 365 data residency overview and definitions
• Adobe: Acrobat business plan comparison
• Adobe Help Center: Microsoft Purview Information Protection support in Acrobat
• Adobe Trust Center: Document Cloud hosting locations

Frequently asked questions