This week in PDF has seen updates to a PDF optimization utility and a 3D plug-in for Adobe Acrobat Pro Extended, along with the launch of a native PDF reader for the BlackBerry platform. Also during the break, a popular Firefox extension has been extended further -- to work with Internet Explorer.
First up, Apago announced the availability of PDF Shrink 4.5 at the Macworld event in San Francisco. The new version adds the ability to optimize PDF documents for viewing on the Apple iPhone and iPod touch devices. PDF Shrink is a Mac OS X utility which, according to Apago, can reduce most PDF files by as much as 90 percent. The latest update enables Mac users to shrink PDFs, making the entire file -- including images -- viewable on Apple's popular handheld devices. For more information, check out the Apago website.
Also making news this week was the release of SLG Mobile's PDF reader, which the company claims is "the first to provide full fidelity (original quality) native PDF viewing on the BlackBerry platform." Documents are natively rendered on the BlackBerry device, precluding the need for server side pre-processing. BeamReader can render a PDF document's embedded fonts directly rather than using font substitutes that alter the document's look and feel. For full details, read the official press release.
Another key release was that of a plug-in for Adobe Acrobat Pro Extended. Lattice Technology has announced its new XVL Plug-in version 1.2 for Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended software. The new version supports the major 3D CAD data formats, and was developed using the Acrobat 9 3D SDK. This allows engineers to open supported files formats directly in Lattice Technology's XVL Studio and Lattice3D Reporter applications. Assemblies can be edited, animated, annotated and then shared with others using PDF. 3D Parts lists and BOMs created in Lattice3D Reporter and Microsoft Excel can be easily shared with others by using the Plug-in to deliver 3D data, parts lists and interrelated assembly tree data in PDF. The 3D PDF files created can be shared, and the 3D animations, interactivity and related assembly structure data can be viewed by virtually anyone, anywhere, using free Adobe Reader software. For more on the product, visit the official vendor site.
Finally, Nitro PDF Software has released a new version of its popular Firefox extension, PDF Download, that is compatible with Internet Explorer. The latest version supports a range of browsers, including Firefox 2 & 3, Flock 1 and IE 7 & 8 (beta). The software can be used to streamline PDF viewing and downloading, along with allowing users to convert HTML into PDF documents or PDF files into web content. For more information on the release, check out the original blog post.
OK, so you want to stamp your document. Maybe you need to give reviewers some advice about the document's status or sensitivity. This tip from author Ted Padova demonstrates how to add stamps with the Stamp Tool along with related comments.
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