Adobe has segmented Acrobat into three distinctly separate products, with successively greater features, benefits and prices. Acrobat 6.0 is a well and truly mature product, in fact, 'mature' is our Acrobat 6.0 one word summary. Planet PDF's Karl De Abrew gives you our take.
Accessibility is not an especially familiar concept in the computing world. Most of us encounter the idea of accessibility often enough by way of special vehicle parking spaces, ramps, braille signage, beeping crosswalks, and so on. Improving accessibility is more than a courtesy, it is an accepted and vital goal of any advanced society.
Word, Excel, TIFF. PostScript, HTML, XML, all have their pluses and minuses - but none of them are PDF. What makes our favorite format so special to business and government? In celebration of PDF technology, Duff delivers a little history of the magic behind the world's most popular electronic document file format.
When you first decide to develop a solution around Acrobat/PDF you need to know what's out there, who's developing what and more importantly you need to think like a PDF Programmer.
In this article we explore the resources available to you, regardless if you are developing your own solution from scratch, piecing together multiple third party solutions or even just automating Acrobat to solve a particular workflow issue.
What is preflight and why would I want to preflight PDF files? Isn't PDF the perfect file format after all? Learn how preflight and PDF fit together and why it is a good idea to preflight PDF files.
Acrobat JavaScript is a programming language that is contained inside Acrobat Standard and Acrobat Professional. Its sole purpose in life is to allow the developer to write scripts (programming code) that automates tasks that would otherwise be time consuming and mind numbing...
As alluded to in the previous article 'What is Acrobat JavaScript?' it turns out Acrobat JavaScript (AcroJS) can be used in many places inside both the PDF document and through Acrobat the application.
PDF files are ideal for graphic arts workflows, but... they have to be created properly! If that is not the case all sorts of things can go wrong; discover the ugly sides of a perfect file format.
Adobe have integrated a fully fledged scripting language inside Acrobat - Javascript (ECMA Script). This provides document authors, developers and system integrators with the ability to automate and maintain their PDF documents from within Acrobat.
However when we talk about Javascript inside Acrobat we need to think slightly out of the box to get a proper handle on the capabilities and limitations, we explore how to think 'AcroJS' in this article.
So which color space is the best? How do PDF color spaces relate to those for PostScript? These and other real-World considerations are tackled in this piece.
The core desktop application from Adobe Systems for creating and managing PDFs. Adobe Acrobat 6.01 is available in Standard and Professional versions, as well as "Elements" for large-scale corporate desktops.
In February, 2003, I argued on Planet PDF that accessibility is a big issue for Adobe Systems - and for the future of the PDF format. See that article, and a sidebar: Comparing Tagged PDF to Accessibility for the Masses for my suggestion. With the release of Reader and Acrobat 6.0 and the Read Aloud feature, Adobe took a major step towards my recommendation for adopting an Accessibility for the Masses perspective. If you have Reader 6.0 and speakers attached, open a PDF and try a Control-Shift-V. (You'll be glad to know that Control-Shift-E stops it!).
With the advent of the slick new Acrobat product line for version 6.0, questions abound in forums and discussion lists throughout the PDF World. In this article, Planet PDF attempts to clarify the distinction between the two products and demystify the selection process for prospective users.
Problem: you host PDF files, and they are some of the most heavily downloaded files on your site. You need to make them compliant with Section 508. At the same time, you want them to deliver a good experience to the end-user, beyond formal compliance. Can it be done?
The truly essential application, Adobe Systems' Reader, now at version 6.01, sets the standard for viewing and printing PDF files. If you don't already have Adobe Reader 6.01 installed, we strongly suggest you do so. It's free.
PDF Forms have great potential, everything from dynamic database driven content to simply capturing data from end users.
When we think about online forms we generally think of HTML based forms, in this article we explore some of the key differences between HTML and PDF Forms and also the limitations of HTML as a means for online forms. We also explain what it takes to develop Forms in PDF and also the related solutions and technologies already in abundance that can make your life easier.
There are various events made available to people writing Acrobat JavaScript to associate their code with. Without actually associating the JavaScript code you write with one of these available events in Acrobat, then it's not going to execute.
You'd be hard pressed to find someone who has developed with Acrobat JavaScript and hasn't had a problem that has stumped them (of which can sometimes end up with the developer kicking themselves when they discover it's such a simple problem). When this happens, it usually results in the person writing the JavaScript to play around with their code, or ask a fellow JavaScript developer on one of the PDF related user forums.
IAC in a nutshell is a method for programmatically taking control over another application and automating its toolset. The other application in this case is Acrobat (Std/Pro) and the program that's taking control is your application which could be written in Delphi, Visual Basic (including VBA) or C++.
We look in detail at how to build solutions using Acrobat's built-in Inter-Application Communication toolset. In no time we can be productive and be writing solutions to automate our daily Acrobat/PDF workflows.
The International Color Consorium (ICC for short) is both the standards body resonsible for the creation of device-independent color profiles and the profiles themselves. Find out more about the profiles, their formation, and their authors.
The latest release has definitely improved the ease of PDF creation. Adobe's marketing calls this 'one button' or 'one step' PDF creation and in most cases it really is that easy.
Almost anything you can do with a piece of paper, you can do with a PDF. And with a PDF, you can do so much more. Here's a simple list of the many ways in which business and government put PDF to use, everyday.
We all have... The important thing is to know where to get information to solve the problems you find during preflight and how to prevent them in the future.
OK, so you know what Acrobat JavaScript is, where you can use it and how to debug it. In this article we're going to jump right into the deep-end with some useful examples of using Acrobat JavaScript.
Too many people sending too many Word files makes for clogged networks and nasty surprises. Find out why PDF just beats the pants off of Word files when it comes to reliable delivery of an original document. If you used to fax or mail it, you'll want to PDF it.
Central to the concept of PDF as a ubiquitious electronic document is its continued development and support of collaboration tools that keep users round tripping documents in electronic form.
Both Acrobat Standard and Professional include a menu item (File, Reduce File Size) for reducing the file size of the current document. Professional includes additional new optimization tools.
Acrobat 6 now allows you to search multiple PDF documents, albeit somewhat more slowly, without first having to index them with Catalog. In addition, the search user interface has been redesigned to be, not surprisingly, more Web oriented in its look and feel.
With less than a month to go until Americans will be scrambling to file their 2009 tax paperwork. Luckily, printable PDF versions of forms such as the 1040 can be downloaded for free from the IRS website.
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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