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33 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Acrobat doesn't fly too high, 11 May 2001
Acrobat is essential for creating PDF files that are in themselves very useful. This version, like the last, allows people to 'print' direct to PDF files. Unlike most wordprocessing files, PDF files are truly WYSIWYG - a factor that is vital in consultancy, my line of business. I know that the client can print out documents as I see them, and cannot alter them unless I allow it. (and has to have a PDF editor such as Acrobat to do it)But the Acrobat creator programs from Adobe (which includes Acrobat itself with PDFwriter and Distiller) seem to take a very complex route to solve a simple problem. The new version of Acrobat allows some editing of PDF files, but still on a line by line basis. The ability to re-use text is trumpeted, but is very crude - the RTF files created are simply text with font details - footnotes get mixed up with the text body and it is still line by line - just as if it had been created on a primitive text recognition program. But the upgrade does allow users in Acrobat to get at the Distiller functions directly, without having to access it separately. Whether it does them any good is another matter, as many of the Distiller functions are pretty obscure to non-specialists. Other innovations include minor changes to the menu layouts which is good as the V4 layout was clumsy. This version is a bit better. There is some way to go both in terms of useability and some simple functionality (e.g ability to change all page numbers in a document if pages are inserted or deleted) The new PDF checker creates obscure error messages even from simple files created by the defaults under V4. I have no idea how to correct them or what effect it has on the clients! Perhaps there is a need for a simpler (and cheaper) version of Acrobat designed more for user-friendliness rather than press specialists. Nonetheless with only a few days experience V5 seems considerably better than V4 - so far.
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