Learning how to manipulate PDFs is critical if you want to efficiently capture and process digital information. Acrobat is the most obvious tool for the job, but the story is a bit more complicated for Mac users. If you don't need all of its features, Acrobat Pro is somewhat pricey, and Acrobat Standard is unavailable for Mac systems. PDFforLawyers.com's Ernest Svenson makes a case for his preferred Mac-based Acrobat alternative.
The release of the new Computable Document Format (CDF) has been reported by some as ringing the death-knell of PDF. In this article, Dan Shea talks about the strengths, obstacles and possibilities for the new "PDF-killer".
There has been a lot said, printed, blogged and tweeted about eBooks over the years, both good and bad. Recently, the main focus of this discussion has been the issue of copyright, along with its close companions, document security and piracy. In this article, Dan Shea takes a trip down memory lane and outlines his position of cautious optimism about the future of eBooks.
Frank Rem from TallComponents writes about his experiences with PDF forms. Specifically, he sought to include a QR barcode on a PDF form, and to have it dynamically updated with the value of another form field. This article chronicles his trial and error efforts to accomplish this task in Acrobat.
Following the addition of sandbox technology to Adobe's flagship product, people (including we at Planet PDF) have been keen to nail down the practical implications of the move. Sure, it makes PDF viewing safer, but how will it affect my elegant PDF document workflow? In this article, Dan Shea takes a look at some of the finer points of "Protected View", Acrobat's new bodyguard.
Unfortunately, exploiting security vulnerabilities in Adobe's PDF products has become something of a growth industry. In response, Adobe has released major security updates to Reader (last November), Acrobat (two weeks ago) and their corresponding web browser plug-ins. These updates integrate "sandboxes" to isolate the software from system resources.
If a PDF document has Reader Extensions enabled, then certain features that are normally only available in Adobe Acrobat are also available in the free Adobe PDF Reader. These features include saving (form) data locally and applying digital signatures. Frank Rem takes a look "under the hood" to gain a better understanding of how Reader Extensions works.
PDF files are generally judged on how they appear. The problem is that a well-crafted PDF (basically, one that works) and a horrible PDF (one that doesn't) can look identical onscreen. Mark Stephens from IDRsolutions explains how to spot the difference and why it matters.
Report cards are in after VIGC recently tested PDF viewers for
compatibility with PDF/X (PDF-based standards for printing). Sadly, the most
common grade was "F". Dan Shea sings a few bars in praise of the humble Adobe
Reader, and explains why you might want to save a little extra hard drive space
to use it over its "leaner" competitors.
PDF files come in all shapes and sizes. They vary from relatively simple to mind-numbingly complex. PDFs can also differ in their degree of conformance to the PDF specification -- the bad ones are often called malformed PDFs. In this article, Rowan Hanna discusses the pros and cons of Adobe Acrobat automatically repairing these malformed PDF files.
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