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: Worse than Malware
Summary: 1 Stars
Don't take my word for it that's a quote from the title of a recent post excoriating this irritating and increasingly bloated product on Slashdot.(1)
Be warned: Adobe has not learned its lesson, and despite the outcry that followed the release of version 6, this latest release of Acrobat continues Adobe's aggressive trend of intruding into your desktop environment, again, as in version 6 without providing an easy way to undo the damage once its done--in fact, it's now nearly impossible. Like earlier releases, this version of Acrobat adds startup macros and new toolbar buttons to your existing applications and adds menu entries to your desktop "right click" menus. Adobe argues that these are conveniences, but they are entirely unnecessary (for most of us "printing" to Adobe PDF achieves the same result, is much more convenient, and a more natural model), and clutter what for most users is either a too-crowded user interface (for those who don't have the knowledge or patience to customize it) or a carefully tuned one (for those who do). Unlike many well-behaved applications that provide obvious ways of avoiding this kind of intrusive and disruptive behavior (e.g. through a simple checkbox option in a settings dialog), Acrobat's "option" for disabling this behavior, once deeply hidden in the setup process,is now almost completely absent. To disable the "Convert to Adobe PDF" button that mysteriously appears in the Outlook mail editor, for example, one has to be sure to choose "this feature will not be available" from the "Microsoft Outlook" option under "Acrobat PDFMaker" under "Create Adobe PDF". Simply deleting the button using Outlook's toolbar customization feature will not work: it comes right back when the editor is next opened. Similar problems arise in Word, Excel, Visio, Project, and Internet Explorer. And there's simply no way to get rid of the never-used "Convert to Adobe PDF" and "Combine in Acrobat..." entries in that appear in the desktop context menus for files (even if one installs none of the Acrobat PDFMaker features).
For the technically inclined wishing to repair some of the damage that Acrobat 7 does, there are complex but largely effective step by step instructions available on the web(2), but even the authors of these are driven to despair by version 7: ("Adobe has really pushed the boat out with Acrobat 7 and managed to screw Word royally") .
In short, Acrobat will make a mess of your working environment, there's no way to completely fix it, and even the partial fix is a pain (and not well documented). (This may seem a minor issue, but if every application followed Adobe's reckless example, our working environments would start to look like strip malls, crowded with features screaming for our attention to the point where it is hard to find what we need when we need it. One of the great strengths of the personal computer desktop is that users can configure it in ways that suit their needs; no application should interfere with that.)
Experienced Acrobat users will also notice that this version continues another frustrating trend for Acrobat (and most other Adobe applications): it is yet again slower to launch than the previous version. In fact, on my 2 GHz Pentium 4, it takes longer to launch than the entire Visual Studio .NET development environment, and longer than the boot sequence for Windows XP!
There are other minor problems as well (arbitrary rearrangements of menu and tool bar items, etc.) but these two major flaws are more than bad enough. Unless you really need the latest Acrobat features, you should probably avoid this upgrade. And if the "improvements" in this release are any indication of where Adobe plans to go with future releases, it may be time to start looking elsewhere for a tool for digital document management.
Fortunately, there's no reason at all to upgrade. Version 7 offers no usefully new features, so you can (and should) avoid this one (at all costs).
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Customer Review: Drawing errors on Acrobat 7.0 -
Summary: 1 Stars
This software is buggy. Check Adobe.com forums for numerous reports of "drawing errors" when opening some pdfs. A font incompatibility issue it seems. Older version (vers 5.0) works just fine. Adobe are you listening??
Customer Review: A winner in my book
Summary: 5 Stars
Just upgraded from 6.0 standard to 7.0 professional. Installation was and snap and online activation took less than 3 seconds. I notice some people are having a problem with XP SP1. You don't want to be running sp1 anymore. (too many chances for a virus attack) Program loads on my machine in 2 seconds. No more logo screen with configuration verfication running across the bottom. Form filler works like a dream. Take a already created form, scan it and choose open static form and then make form fillable. Thats all there is to it. If you have a machine with low ram and don't have a scanner you might just want to stick with the free acrobat reader. But if you want to create and edit PDF files, 7.0 Pro can't be beat in my book. Customer Review: XP SP1 users beware
Summary: 1 Stars
I had up no now been an extremely satisfied user of Acrobat 5.0. With added features and new bells and whistles, I was just as enthusiastic about purchasing Acrobat 7.0 Pro. End of exhiliaration. From the day that I have purchased the software, I have tried everything in my power to get the "Convert Web Page to PDF" function to work (running XP SP1, IE6 SP1). User-to-User forums, local tech support, googled the web over, install uninstall reinstall the software at least 10 times. The strange thing is that I tested a version of AAP6 on my system and it worked no problem! With AAP7, i have become all too familiar with the "faulting ntdll.dll" error message with repeatedly crashes Acrobat without even a hint of guilt or compassion. Speaking of compassion... Adobe voice support was brief and to the point: "provide credit card info before proceeding with this call and receiving support for your issue".
I am grieving the simplicity of 5.0... in desperate yearning of a patch or update for 7.0 tailored to XP SP1 user needs.
Customer Review: FAB ware
Summary: 1 Stars
I've been creating .pdf files since Acrobat 3 and the software has come a long way. That said, I found the following feature in the latest version to be extremely beneficial. PDFs are static, meaning uneditable. But you can set up a layer on the the .pdf to allow collaborators to add to the doc leaving the original untouched. This is a valable tool if you work in the legal field and have a document where there are many contributors to the work product. Ultimately you have the choice of integrating the collaborators work with the original assuming the day ever comes for the final version.
Furthermore, if you work in the legal field in California the California Rule of Court 2056(b)(2) says that by 1 January, 2007 all docs that are filed electronically must allow for full text searching. This only applied to electronically filed docs however an exception allows you to submit scanned and copied docs. From what I've seen .pdf's have become state SOP -standard operating procedure- b/c .pdf is already the federal standard for submitted court docs b/c if you set the app to do so, every .pdf is already full text searchable.
Finally, for those still using version 5 or earlier, realize that version 7 files are one-third to one-half the size of Acrobat 5 .pdf's.
NB: I gave the sw 1 star b/c it's still bloatware IMO, however bloatware with a constructive purpose.