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This is the seventh part of a series of reviews that will cover what is contained in the Adobe Creative Suite 3 (CS3) Master Collection. When Adobe released CS3 earlier this year, they not only released single version products, but also six separate suites of products. They are Design Premium, Design Standard, Web Premium, Standard, Production Premium, and Master Collection. You can go online to compare what is contained in each version. The goal of this series it to define what each product does and provide information of what the new version brings to the table.
What do you need to run Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional? On Windows you need an Intel® Pentium® III or compatible processor, Microsoft® Windows® 2000 with Service Pack 4; Windows Server® 2003 (32-bit or 64-bit editions) with Service Pack 1; Windows XP Professional, Home, Tablet PC, or 64-bit Editions with Service Pack 2; or Windows Vista™ Home Basic, Home Premium, Ultimate, Business, or Enterprise (32-bit or 64-bit editions). On the Mac you need OS X v10.4.3. Both platforms require 256 MB RAM, 64 MB Video RAM, 1,024×768 monitor resolution with 16-bit video card, 860 MB hard drive space and DVD-ROM Drive.
Adobe Acrobat is a family of software who's applications use the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) as their native file format. Adobe Reader is the free version of their software that enables one to read PDF files. Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional is the software application that allows one to create PDF files for distribution. Version 1 was released in 1993 and only available on the Mac. Version 2 was released in September 1994 and made available on both Windows and Mac. Version 8 was release in November 2006 and is part of the Creative Suite.
So what is new with Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional
• Combine files from multiple application – allows you to easily assemble documents spreadsheets, presentations, emails, web pages, and other content into a single Adobe PDF file. You can present files in what ever preferred order you would like regardless of file type, paper size, or orientation. You can embed multimedia, 3D, audio and video as well.
• Collaboration – will allow you to accelerate feedback and approvals by giving you the tools for initiating, managing, and tracking document reviews. Reviewers can use sticky notes, stamps, highlighters, pencil strokes, strikethrough and other familiar tools. You can even merge the feedback into a single PDF file.
• Auto-recognize form fields – Automatically locate form fields in static PDF documents and convert them into interactive fields that can be filled electronically by anyone using Adobe Reader software (version 7 or 8).
• Permanently remove sensitive information – allows you to remove metadata, hidden layers, and other concealed information, and use redaction tools to permanently delete the sensitive text.
• Archive Microsoft Outlook e-mail in PDF – format. Configure Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional to archive email in Microsoft Outlook for easy search and retrieval.
• Archive Lotus Notes e-mail in PDF – format. This allows you to convert email in Lotus Notes for easy search and retrieval.
• New user interface – that includes customizable toolbars and a getting started page that visually steps you through commonly used features.
Maybe the best feature in Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional is the ability to combine, as opposed to merge, so many different files in to one package. This way you can send them around such that each one can be saved independently.
The other feature that I found has a lot of potential in Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional is the enhancements for data collection using Adobe PDF forms. This feature includes a wizard for creating forms from templates, existing electronic documents, paper forms, and other data forms.
Adobe Acrobat has always been the standard for creating PDF documents. It is now the standard for creating secure distribution, collaboration, and data collection. With the ability to collaborate on documents by using e-mail, collect data via forms and new stronger security it is now taken to a new level.
