Review: Adobe Acrobat 4

Second look at the Future of Electronic Publishing

by Paul Gerstenbluth (ArieFound@aol.com) RIAG Member

Next, I asked several Apple members what they thought about the new Adobe Acrobat 4 program at the Apple User Group breakfast.

"Is Adobe Acrobat 4 worth the upgrade? Colin Phillips, from the Apple User Group in Waterloo, Canada made an interesting observation. "Right out-of-the box, using Adobe Acrobat 4, Quark Xpress is easier and saner to use for making PDFs."

The other Apple User Group members agreed with Colin. They told me "Adobe Acrobat 4 is definitely worth the upgrade."

"PDF vs. HTML in an E-Book Battle Royal," the headline screamed in the Publish Magazine (the Magazine for Electronic Publishing Professionals) in the August 1999 edition.

Daniel Munyan, the Everybook's Founder, stated that Acrobat PDF offers publishers the easiest route to E-Book (electronic) publishing. Also, Munyan stressed that Adobe Acrobat supports expert layout, navigation and typography. In addition, Adobe Acrobat is the standard in portable document format (PDF).

Companies use the simple formula: "Reduced Expenses=Company Success." Businesses do this by eliminating printing hard copies of software manuals instead they print them as PDFs. Companies have since embraced the new Adobe Acrobat technology and helped distribute the free Adobe Reader on their software CDs.

First, there are new tools for graphics professionals in Acrobat 4. These new features are designed for graphic designers, production artists, and pre-press and printing professionals.

The new Touch Up Text tool lets users make last-minute text edits to a PDF file or edit images embedded in PDF documents by way of the new Graphics Select Tool.

Easily convert files to PDF with Acrobat 4.0 It's now a snap to convert files in other formats to PDF. The user can drag and drop a graphic, spreadsheet, text, HTML, or other file onto the Acrobat icon. The file will automatically open as a new PDF file with Acrobat.

Adobe has also added new ease-of-use features to Acrobat 4.0 software, including drag-and-drop conversion of Microsoft Word and other formatted files into PDF format.

• Yellow Highlighting Annotation Tools.
  Acrobat 4.0 adds a set of new annotation tools: Yellow highlighting pen and a pencil tool. Now, adding changes to an Acrobat document is as easy as making corrections to a paper document. (Previously Adobe Acrobat 3 users could only place digital sticky notes and video clips in an Acrobat document.)

• Highlight Text.
  Adobe Acrobat users can now emphasize words, sentences, or entire paragraphs in an Acrobat document using a digital yellow highlighter pen. The user can change the yellow to pink, blue, or a custom color.
  
  The electronic highlighting marks in Acrobat 4.0 show up when the document is photocopied or faxed. By comparison, highlighting marks made on paper documents does not show up when faxed or photocopied.

• Underline Text.
  Another way to call attention to a word or sentence in Acrobat 4.0 is to underline it.

• Strike through Text.
  Acrobat 4.0 users can now suggest editing cuts more explicitly by drawing a line through unwanted text.

Creating forms in Acrobat is easier because it comes with built-in functions for data calculations, validation and formatting. You don't need programming experience to create forms. Adobe Acrobat's simple "point-and-click" works together with pull-down menus and dialog boxes makes form creation fast and easy. Acrobat allows you not only to design forms in Microsoft Word or Adobe PageMaker, and convert them to PDF. Now you make them dynamic documents that recipients with Acrobat or the free Acrobat Reader can fill out and return to you Online.

Adobe Acrobat easily creates and review PDF files. Now, you can publish PDF files anywhere. With free Acrobat Reader software, you can view, navigate and print PDF from Mac, Windows and UNIX computers. Transfer PDF files to service bureaus and printers electronically. You can easily make brochures and presentations accessible worldwide. Also, you can post PDF documents such as HR forms online complete with links and bookmarks without reauthoring in HTML. Page Capture for importing scan pages and OCR recognition is now available in Adobe Acrobat 4 version using Mac System 8 or greater.

Digital Signatures cut paperwork costs. The Adobe digital signature framework extends the use of Acrobat beyond document publishing and distribution. Unfortunately, Digital Signature is available only in the Window's version. Hopefully Digital Signatures will be available in the next Mac upgrade. Companies misuse Adobe Acrobat by not making bookmarks nor text links to navigate through their help software PDF manuals. In addition, two and three columns text PDFs are difficult to read on the computer screen.

I have always liked working with Adobe Acrobat. Most of my presentations were made using the slide show portion of Adobe Acrobat for cross-platform PC and Mac clients. I enjoyed using the bookmarks and links in Adobe Acrobat and would recommend Adobe Acrobat as "the Program" to have for making cross-platform presentations and Client Proposals.

• Power Macintosh
• Apple System Software version 7.5.3 or later for Acrobat
• Apple System Software version 7.1.2 for Acrobat Reader
• 6 MB of RAM for Acrobat (12 MB recommended)
• 16 MB of RAM for Distiller

Paper Capture plug-in (32 MB recommended)

• 60 MB of available hard disk space
• CD-ROM drive

Adobe Acrobat by mail order is $230 and their upgrade is $90 (US). Adobe's web site is at http://www.adobe.com/.

Paul Gerstenbluth is President of the ARIE Foundation. The ARIE Foundation's mission is to provide VA hospitalized patients with hobby materials and computers that helps in their stay and recovery.

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