Review: Adobe Acrobat 9 sets foot in Web 2.0 with web-based live collaboration
|
About the Author
|
|
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES | |
|
|
Acrobat 9 is available in three different editions: Standard, Pro and Pro Extended. The Standard edition is squarely aimed at office users. If you need prepress and print production functionality, Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro is the right choice. Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended is the successor to Adobe Acrobat 3D v8.
With the previous release of Acrobat, Adobe put the focus on redesigning the interface and expanding the print production capabilities of the software. This time around, it is all about re-inventing collaboration to enhance efficiency and performance. Some features such as forms have been somewhat improved, others, such as preflight, have been considerably enhanced. Yet if there is one signature feature of this release, it is live collaboration with free web services on Acrobat.com.
Figure 1. Live collaboration with screen sharing and page sharing in Acrobat 9
Familiar interface
And at first glance, Acrobat 9 Pro brings mostly incremental enhancements to its already well-established features. Indeed if you run Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional and Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro in a side-by-side comparison and take away some few new icons such as "Collaborate", "Upload Documents to Acrobat.com" and "Multimedia", you will be hard-pressed to say which one is the new release without checking the Splash screen. Obviously is all so similar that it is downright confusing.
But wrapped up in this familiar-looking package are also some very significant improvements. To bolster the appeal of PDF-based collaboration, Adobe has launched Acrobat.com, a collection of Web services for creating and sharing documents online, which integrate with Acrobat 9 Pro.
Figure 2. Acrobat 9 brings collaboration to a whole new level.
Next: Getting organized with PDF portfolios (page 2 of 6)
