Adobe Acrobat 5.0 [OLD VERSION]

For most of the documents I create I use a personal layout with my company logo that I do not want tempered with or copied by people I send the documents to. I also use specific fonts that are not common to all computer users. With MS Word it was impossible to control the layout or font of the document when viewed by the customers. With Acrobat, however, I can embed the fonts with the pdf document instead of having to point a customer to a web site to download (or worse, to buy) a font used in the document, or live with the company logo showing up like totally and embarrassingly messed up on the client's machine. PDF documents created by Acrobat solved this problem both on the screen and for the printer.

I was also pleasantly surprised to find daily uses for Acrobat, even for my personal projects. For archiving personal records that I do not want accidentally altered by myself or someone else, I keep them as PDF's with my signature, which has the date-stamp info. I no longer have to worry about new versions of Word being able to open my old Word documents, which, mind you, is a proprietary format whereas PDF is not.

I have also used the Web open/capture feature to capture groups of web pages or entire web sites to my hard drive as a single multi-page document. Instead of having to follow the link for each page from the table of contents page, I just put the web URL in the Web Open address box, and specify how many levels of links I want Acrobat to follow and capture. If you think this is a rare need, try downloading the lyrics for each song of a 2-CD set, or the top 10 recipes using the pumpkin, or even a multi-part study guide for Tommy's calculus class. After capturing all I needed from a web site, I can delete the pages I don't want (legal mumble-jumble, advertisements, or the answer sheet for the calculus review questions included in the study guide), perhaps saving those deleted pages as a separate document (in the case of the answers to the calculus questions), then print out the final document I wanted, or maybe email it, as a single PDF document, to Tommy who's (on a Mac and) stressing out about his calculus test in a college in another state. How convenient is that!

So, if you think Acrobat is too limited in features to justify its price, I can tell you that it is much more than a Word-document capturer, and it is truly indispensible. It is based on a great concept and well-designed, with a easy and short learning curve for a new user and still offers advanced features for those with a more technical background. Scripting to make forms from Acrobat, I've heard, is pretty nifty, but that's beyond me. Try Acrobat 5.0 -- it's a cliche, but it's true -- you'll be glad you did. :-)

Forms in pdf files are very common on the government agents websites and school websites. If you only have a Acrobat Reader, you can view the forms and fill them out. However, you can't save your writing to backup what you wrote. The Acrobat only saves the blank form. If you encounter a pdf college application, there is no way to fill it out perfectly at one time. That's where Acrobat comes in to play. With Acrobat, you can fill out the form and save the whole form with your writing in your harddrive. Another day, you may pull it out and make other changes.

This product has helped me so much! It's worth the price.

Despite the early issues, I cannot live without this application. One of the features I love most is the security that can be set on a document, which can prevent readers from changing, highlighting and copying content to a clipboard, and printing - or any combination. This allows me to share documents without worrying about my content being 'lifted' and used by others without my permission. More importantly, the password protection is solid.

The feature that transforms PDF files into other formats, such as RTF and HTML, does not do a spectacular job, but I was able to use an older plug-in called Iceni Gemini I had purchased for use with Acrobat 4 to overcome those limitations. While the format transformation has some limitations, the forms feature is superb and represents a reason to upgrade to version 5 (or get Acrobat if you're not using an earlier version).

I rate it at 4 stars because of the poor documentation and some of the issues cited above. However, if you work with documents, especially web-based documents, and need to share them across all platforms Acrobat is essential. If you want sophisticated forms handling, then you have yet another reason to invest in this useful tool.

With each new version of Acrobat, Adobe adds great new features, and v.5 is no exception. The breadth and power of the forms and security features are astounding. And, of course, the preservation of content and layout continues to excel beyond comparison.

Bravo!!

After I finally got the program installed, it worked well. It does a very good job archiving web pages. I am doing some research that uses internet databases, so I need to save a lot of web pages to my hard drive. Acrobat will save multple web pages to a single file, and alter the links so that they point to the correct place in the PDF file. It even scales the pages so I don't lose any text on the right margin. This system is much better than the Microsoft Internet Explorer save function, which has to make a separate folder and file for each web page saved.

I can also convert PowerPoint demonstrations to PDF format and set them up to open automatically in full screen mode, just like a PowerPoint slideshow. This is useful for sending demonstrations to people who don't have PowerPoint.

One drawback I've found is that a lot of advanced features are not available in the free Acrobat Reader. Obviously Adobe needs to make some money, but people who only have Acrobat Reader really should be able to save a PDF form with its data.

I'm confident I'll find more uses for this program, but I wouldn't recommend it to someone who is not a techie.