Review: Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Standard

by Paul Gerstenbluth (ariefound@aol.com)

Acrobat Remains the Standard for Electronic Information

Adobe Acrobat remains the standard for business and government distribution of electronically formatted documents. The free Acrobat Reader is used to view corporate reports, technical manuals, tax forms and formatted on-line documents. Acrobat Reader works on every platform: PC, Mac, and Unix.

I use Acrobat both for my business and home use. The cross-platform of Acrobat Reader has made my work easier when dealing with clients of the Windows' persuasion.

Acrobat has been and remains one of my most important applications to create and excahnge electronic documents. Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Standard software lets you convert any document to a PDF file. Your document's layout, fonts, links, and images will remain intact when you use Adobe Acrobat.

Under the Hood

Adobe Acrobat has menu commands, catalog, distiller, spelling and the unique function of saving Adobe Acrobat page from the web. You can also create eBooks using Adobe Acrobat. In addition, Acrobat allows you to drag and drop new PDF files into the Master PDF.

You can gather information and reduce costs with Acrobat PDF forms. Create interactive forms that look like their paper versions. Now you can easily link the forms to a Web server, so that computer users can fill them in and digitally sign them from within their Web browsers. Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Standard has 'Digital signature' support. You can approve final pdf documents with secure digital signatures.

What's new in the Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Standard program?

• One-button Adobe PDF files creation from Microsoft Office applications.
• Review Management
  You can use the File 'Send by e-mail for Review' command to set up an e-mail based review. This allows you to track several documents that are being reviewed and send reminder messages to reviewers. In addition, you can invite additional reviewers to join in the review process.
• Management Tools.
  The PDF file is packaged in a way that automatically opens the commenting toolbars for the recipients. Also, Acrobat Standard opens the 'How to window' on commenting topics, and provides instructions for returning comments.
• Commenting Tools
  The Commenting toolbar contains the Note tool, the text editing tools, the Stamp tool, and the text markup tools. The Advanced Commenting toolbar contains the drawing tools, the Text Box tool, the Pencil tool, Pencil Eraser tool, and the file attachment tools.
• Electronic Comments and Acrobat PDF Forms
  Adobe Acrobat can shorten your document review cycles. Writers and reviewers can add comments such as electronic sticky notes and text highlights. You can use Adobe Acrobat to receive comments from multiple reviewers. The reviewers can also add electronic comments quickly to an on-line Adobe PDF file.
• Protect Sensitive Documents
  Increase file security with password protection. You can apply permission to view, edit, comment, sign or print PDF files. Adobe Acrobat has 128-bit encryption control for safeguarding your documents.

Pro Reaction

Adobe Acrobat is a powerful document management tool for searching contents in PDF files. You can go right into any PDF file and look into annotations and bookmarks.

In Adobe Acrobat's thumbnail palette you can insert new pages quickly. Create documents anyone can open. Easily convert your Microsoft Office documents to Adobe PDF with a click of the Adobe Acrobat button. Gather research information from the Web by downloading and converting Web pages to an Adobe PDF file. Then, you can save them as an Adobe PDF file with active links.

Con Reaction

The Adobe Capture document in Acrobat does not work on the Macintosh. Adobe Acrobat is slow on loading to my G3, iMac, DVD SE computer. (Workaround solution is to run Acrobat Reader for quick viewing pdf files. You cab reserve the use of Adobe Acrobat Standard for editing and for a complete review of your pdf work.)

Adobe's price: $299; upgrade from Acrobat 4.0 or 5.0, $99

Mac G3 running Mac OS X 10.2 with 128 MG of RAM

Adobe Systems, 800/272-3623 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 Powerbooks that help in their stay and recovery.

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