Yes, I have Adobe!

Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Reader and PDFs have been with us for more than 10 years now. To date, more than 500 million copies of Adobe Reader have been distributed worldwide on 23 platforms and 26 languages. Of course we still get people telling us: “I have Adobe!” which of course leads to a discussion about Adobe Systems, Acrobat and PDFs. Usually that person has the free Adobe Reader installed on their PC or Mac. Their knowledge of what the Reader does can be summarized by viewing and printing PDFs they get as e-mail attachments or when surfing the Web.

The common assumption is that since the Adobe Reader is free it is therefore quite limited. So, if you really want to do great things with PDFs you need the full version of Adobe Acrobat. The answer is yes and no. Adobe has done a great deal over the years to develop Adobe Acrobat into the most complete set of tools for creating and editing PDF files. What is not commonly known is the free Reader has also had countless features added, some which are hidden! PDF document authors certainly need Adobe Acrobat, but now these authors can enable Adobe Reader users to do much more with the PDFs they receive.

What is so special about Adobe Reader?

Have you downloaded the Adobe Reader lately? Adobe Reader 7.0.8 for Windows XP tips the scales at over 20Mb. Wow, that’s a lot for free software that simply views and prints PDFs! The truth is that you are downloading more feature-rich software than you think.

You can certainly still view and print PDFs, but there are a number of features that anyone with the latest version of the Reader can use, and there are features that can be enabled by the creator of the PDF as well such as:

• Participate in PDF document reviews - Review and add comments to PDFs by extending the commenting capability of Adobe Reader using Acrobat 7.0 Professional;
• Protect document authenticity - Apply digital signatures to certify and authenticate a PDF when enabled by Adobe LifeCycle Reader Extensions;
• Complete PDF forms online or offline - Fill in and submit forms electronically when this capability is enabled by the document author in Adobe Designer 7.0. Adobe Designer 7.0 is included with Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Professional;
• Save file attachments - If a PDF file includes additional usage rights, you can attach PDF and other files to it so that, in Reader, the user can open it for viewing and save a copy.

How could this benefit my organization?

These are just some key features that are disabled in Adobe Reader unless usage rights are provided by other Adobe software. What was once limited to Acrobat users is now possible for the much broader number of Adobe Reader users. Adobe PDFs can be used for many more tasks throughout an organization without requiring software purchases for a large number of users since Adobe Reader is free. The results are greater collaboration and better support of business processes in addition to Adobe PDF’s already well-known document sharing possibilities.

How can Documédia help?

Documédia has worked with numerous organizations in integrating the use of PDFs in their business activities through training, consulting and development services. Please contact us if you would like to learn more about using PDF related solutions in your workplace.

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