Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Professional [OLD VERSION]
by Adobe
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Software Reviews of Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Professional [OLD VERSION]
Customer Review: Improved again.
Summary: 5 Stars
As a user of Acrobat from version 4.0 I have to say that once the use of a new version becomes familiar, there has always been a definite improvement. New users, of course, don't have any choice about what version they will be using, so comparisons to previous versions is rather pointless for them.
Users of version 7 should be aware that many of 7.0's features will only be readily available to those using Windows and Acrobat Reader 7.0 to view their documents. Yes, Acrobat Reader 7.0 is now available for Linux, but the installation does not automatically link to any media players installed, and many embedded media files will most probably not be available. Cross document and many other links should also be given due consideration, as they will fail in a Linux installation. If in doubt, check.
The 'Reduce File Size' is a useful feature carried over from 6.0. This should be used to downgrade an Acrobat 7.0 file for users who will be using Acrobat Reader 5.0 - which is a lot - to eliminate the alert pop up about Reader incompatibility, even though there may be no incompatibility. This will apply to any .pdf with only images and text, etc. Not doing so has been frequently known to cause a recipient to panic and refuse to open the .pdf. This feature will also have a surprisingly beneficial result for the size of a .pdf. Reducing from 250 - 150 KB. is not unusual. But be sure to check the effect on image quality, if this is an important consideration.
The extra integration with MS-Office is more of a nuisance than a convenience, I find. But maybe casual newbies will appreciate this.
Anyone using Word for publishing purposes should consider InDesign and Framemaker instead, as they are more properly integrated with Acrobat in the first place.
The price of Acrobat has certainly increased dramatically since the days of 4.0. But then it's no more expensive than a decent colour printer, and is a lot more versatile.
Customer Review: Acrobat is the Cornerstone of Knowledge Management
Summary: 5 Stars
I train over 100 people per month on Acrobat. It is the only program that can bring the output from all programs together in one format and maintain document integrity. All the students are loving the improvements in Acrobat 7.
The adding of macros into Office Products is a great productivity tool that is universally accepted by all my students. I get several questions per month from students wanting to add the macros when Windows security is set too tight for all the macros to be added. Just printing PDF through the distiller does not create all the intelligence that is available in a PDF document.
Adobe is real good about asking for comments from the user community. If you want new features or changes in the next edition there is a portal on the Adobe website for your comments.
ISO is adopting numerous standards around PDF. PDF-A (archival) will be realeased in the next couple months. It will be the only format that can handle text, raster and vector. ISO PDF-E (engineering) is under development - it will revolutionize engineering. Acrobat 7 allows creation of 3-D PDF files that can be annimated and viewed in the Acrobat 7 Reader. Adobe publishes the PDF spec and encourages developers to expand the program. You can purchase third-party plugins to expand the functionality.
Finally we have a common format for the computer world to communicate. It will not replace other programs, but will allow us to communicate in one format. Imagine a 3000 page file with outputs from AutoCAD, Word, excel, microstation, scanning and numerous other programs. Now imagine searching everyting including drawings in 2 seconds. With Acrobat 7 you can do it.
Customer Review: Don't buy Version 7!
Summary: 1 Stars
I paid full retail price for Acrobat 7.0 based on my assumtion about Adobe's reputation. What a huge mistake! Acrobat 7 will take over your machine and spread its tentacles into nearly all of your applications. The arrogance of Adobe is truly amazing. I couldn't make it work with Netscape, but I also couldn't remove it and use Reader 6.0 either. It seems they know best how you want to use your computer, and they enforce their methods upon you. Good luck if you have any problems or questions: the technical support people wanted $40.00 to answer a simple question, and this was immediately after I purchased and registered the product. I finally had to uninstall Acrobat completely from my machine. I've just wasted $450.00.
Steer clear of Version 7!
Customer Review: Shameless release
Summary: 1 Stars
At first I was excited because the load time for 7.0 is considerably faster than 6.0 (Professional version). But once I opened Office, what used to be an inconvenience now became a time-consuming and impossible morass: while the previous versions allowed you to remove its "convenient" toolbar (that always ate up its own row on the top, grrr!) and disable its macros, now in 7.0 these eye sores never go away since they are not normal add-in templates and worse, the Word add-in forbids you from making ANY customizations to Word. That means no customized styles, no toolbar changes, no keyboard shortcuts--all your changes get wiped out by their convenient add-in every time you exit from Word, unless you look up some obscure fix for this problem whereby you can only save your customizations if you press SHIFT + SAVE ALL in the file menu. If youre asking, what?, then that's precisely it. What the frig. I managed to remove their toolbar from Word but to disable the annoying drop-down folders (they take up too much space), I had to resort to googling the problem to find a registry-edit fix. There is really no happy compromise.
If you keep their shamelessly untested software release, then your entire screen gets cluttered and you cannot customize Word to your liking, not to mention some of their drop-down menus are just downright buggy and have crashed Word for me several times.
If you tweak the registry to disable its features, then your PDF created from Word won't be as optimal as it could be. (for one, hyperlinking heading styles do not get converted to hyperlinks unless you use their macro as far as I can tell. I like to use hyperlinking Table of Contents in my Word files so this is important to me). the only solution i have figured out is to create two registry strings, one which I click on to disable their stuff for normal use, and another that enables it again for when i need to make PDF from Word. What a hassle.
Right now I am trying to figure out how to get rid of annoying toolbar they added in Outlook.
Do not buy this product unless/until they release a fix or upgrade that addresses these issues.
Customer Review: If only it weren't from Adobe
Summary: 3 Stars
Adobe continues to provide the worst, most inaccessible, and most annoying customer "service" of any major software company. After spending a half-day wading through levels of approval and ignorance, I am left with no answers to what should be a simple question about this new release of Acrobat. Adobe's product documentation is shallow, difficult to navigate, and generally fails to cover even basic features. How can they get it so wrong, for so long? I dearly wish a customer-oriented company would offer them some competition, so I wouldn't feel obliged to put up with their frequent upgrades and lousy service.