The Bottom Line: From document sharing to document editing, to document archiving, one would be hard pressed to find a better application than Adobe Acrobat.
vemartin's Full Review: Adobe Acrobat 5.0 Full Version for PC (22001438)
There was a time believe it or not, when file sharing was relatively hard to do. Sure there were conversion utilities that allowed one to convert a Word file to a Word Perfect file, or a Paradox file to a Excel file etc., but something always got lost in the translation. The whole experience would leave on frustrated and worn out. And let’s not even talk about converting a file generated on a MAC, so that it could be read or edited on a PC. Enter Adobe, with their fantastic Acrobat file converter and reader. Acrobat was written to solve the problem of document sharing.
Almost any document or web-page can be saved to PDF (Portable Document File) format, and read with an Acrobat reader, said reader being free for the downloading from Adobe. What started out as an obscure file format used by a choice few has blossomed—seemingly over night—into the de-facto document-sharing format. The IRS (and other government agencies) makes publications and forms available in PDF format; most hardware vendors no longer print instruction manuals, but include them in PDF format, on the CD-ROM shipped with the product; my school posts almost everything from grades, to course syllabi, to student manuals and handbooks, in PDF format. And several computers manufactures now ship their new computers with Acrobat Reader as part of the standard software load-out.
First Impressions:
I love this program! Next the OS, and my trusty word processor, Acrobat is by far the most important program on my computer. It has become an invaluable application, one which I would find it hard to be productive without.
I bought the full version of Adobe Acrobat 5.0 because I needed to edit documents for law school and did not want to fill them out by hand. Acrobat makes this easy if the files are saved originally in a PDF format that allows them to be edited by the full version of Acrobat. But in addition to that task, I also scan documents (monthly bills, business correspondence, account statements, etc.), via my HP D135 multi-functional printer (see my review: http://www.epinions.com/content_85188185732) directly into my computer and save them as graphic files, and then shred the originals.
Up to this point, I had used the .PCX format which is not universally available, making sharing these files problematic. Not so any more, because I can (thanks to my spouse who discovered this functionality) save all of the files in PDF format; simplicity itself. Now if I apply to refinance my mortgage for instance, I can burn all of the relevant documents to CD and then give them to my mortgage company, which can then view and print them out if need be. If they don’t have a reader, I can burn that to the same disc! And I have recently discovered that in addition to being able to scan documents directly into Acrobat and then save them, I can also append the saved files!
I have noticed that saving files as grayscale of color graphic PDF’s increases the size of the files considerably (average size 3.0 MB), but not enough to dissuade me from using the procedure. Files can also be saved as .TXT files.
Fundamentals:
*PDF File Format:
AdobeAcrobat software enables you to create ".PDF" files (Portable Document File). Any PDF file can be viewed by users on any computer platform (MAC or PC) as long as they have the acrobat reader, which can be downloaded free of charge at (www.adobe.com). And therein lies the beauty of the program; documents and pictures can be universally shared.
* Adobe Distiller:
According to the Acrobat users manual “Acrobat uses Acrobat Distiller—a simulated printer—to create Adobe PDF files. All the components necessary to create this printer are installed and configured automatically when you perform a typical installation of Acrobat so that you are ready to create Adobe PDF files right away. (If you did not use the default installation and did not include the necessary drivers in a custom installation, you can install the most recent printer drivers from the Adobe Web site at www.adobe.com).” A quick perusal of the “printers and faxes” folder (WinXP), or the “printers” folder (Win9x, Win2000), will confirm the installation of the Distiller and PDFWriter print drivers.
For most Acrobat users, Acrobat Distiller operates silently, invisible to the user. However, the Distiller job options can be manipulated by those users who feel the need because of their heavy use of graphics, fonts, and color. The default Distiller job option is eBook, which provides optimization suitable for most general purposes. Other available predefined job options settings include Press, Screen, and Print optimization.
* Embedded Fonts:
Acrobat 5.0’s ability to embed fonts known in some circles as "font embedding," is what makes the application universal. When a user “distills” a file, font data is incorporated (embedded) into the resulting PDF. As a result the originator of the PDF does not have to include font files (Postscript, True Type, etc.) with the document nor does the end user need to have the fonts installed on their computers.
* PDFMaker 5.0:
The default Acrobat installation in the Windows Operating System Environment includes a macro—Adobe PDFMaker 5.0—that allows the user to create Adobe PDF files quickly and easily from within Microsoft Office applications from Office 97 to Office XP. PDFMaker is installed automatically if you have the Microsoft Office application on your system.
According to the users manual, “[b]y default Adobe Acrobat PDF files created with PDFMaker generate tagged PDF and preserve hyperlinks, styles, and bookmarks present in the source document.” Once Acrobat is installed a macro can be run within Word, which in turn generates a toolbar, which is handy for then converting files to PDF, or converting files to PDF and then emailing them.
Conclusions:
Out of all the software I have ever purchased AdobeAcrobat full version is by far the best investment I have ever made. I have not yet tapped into the full potential of this software and it is already indispensable to me. From document sharing to document editing, to document archiving, one would be hard pressed to find a better application than Adobe Acrobat. Could it be the application of the century? It has my vote.
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