adobe acrobat 4.0 - Software Review - Evaluation

Emedia Professional, Sept, 1999 by Robert J. Boeri

Acrobat Reader 4.0 is still the freely distributed Adobe product for viewing PDF files created in Acrobat 4.0, and Reader (sans search plug-in) is also included on the Acrobat 4.0 CD-ROM. In Acrobat 3.0, both Reader and its search plug-in were free--contributing greatly to Acrobat's widespread adoption and popularity among CD-ROM publishers. A visit to Adobe's site for the free Reader download might lead you to momentary panic, however. The Web download of Reader no longer includes search--the Verity full-text companion to Catalog. According to Adobe product managers, the Reader (with search plug-in) will be available in Q3 1999--probably by the time you read this. In late May, company representatives speculated that users might possibly have to purchase a separate Reader CD-ROM (priced at around $20), so check the Adobe site for details. When you eventually get Reader and the search plug-in, you'll be permitted to distribute freely on CD-ROM any indexed PDF collections you develop.

flipping over Acrobat

It's probably inevitable that as a product grows and matures, it becomes more complex to develop and learn, and more difficult to support (by Adobe, as well as by organizations using Acrobat). Acrobat 4.0 is certainly more complex, and organizations will need time to learn and master its new feature set. Indeed, the missing Reader search plug-in will initially delay the upgrading by organizations to Acrobat 4.0 (if they need the plug-in for distributing their information on CD-ROM). At the same time, Adobe has built a great architectural foundation to provide SGML or XML layers in Acrobat, an enhancement which could provide more focused searching. It's too bad that Adobe products (such as FrameMaker SGML) have not yet exploited this, though it's an obvious direction to expect them to take next.

Finally, a warning: compatibility with the classic Acrobat 3.0 isn't complete. Be careful which new features you exploit unless you know your consumers have all moved up to version 4.0. For example, yellow highlight annotations are viewable by version 3.0 users, but embedded sound annotations are not accessible. I suggest keeping Acrobat 3.0 installed for compatibility testing until you're completely familiar with 4.0. On the whole, though, Acrobat 4.0 is indeed a powerful tool and a great value for anyone managing electronic documents. Just be careful to manage its continued growth.

adobe acrobat 4.0

synopsis: Acrobat 4.0 is the latest upgrade Portable Document Format (PDF) creation tool. Based on Adobe's new 1.3 architecture, Acrobat 4.0 converts documents into a PDF file while preserving their original appearance, in turn making them distributable for viewing and printing on any computer. As of late May, only the Windows version was available with all of its functionality intact; the Mac version is missing key features and the UNIX version is in the planning stages and not yet deliverable. Central to this version is its increased ease of use, new third-party plug-ins and technologies, enhanced prepress and service bureau capabilities, and expanded forms capabilities. Despite some minimal flaws (including a missing Reader search plug-in), 4.0 is still one of those tools you must have if you're involved with any type of digital publishing or document information management.