Reader X: Adobe gets it right at last

Monday, October 18th, 2010

With the launch earlier today of its new Acrobat X platform, Adobe is naturally keen to highlight the strengths of its Acrobat authoring applications. With new capabilities such as action-based automation and enhanced portfolio handling, the new Acrobat X Pro (see full review) is certainly a decent upgrade.

By contrast, the new Acrobat X Standard (see full review) offers comparatively little. As many programs now offer their own in-built PDF authoring capabilities, and third-party alternatives such as Nitro and the more powerful Nuance offer similar office-focused PDF-based power (including OCR-based archiving and rich Word export), the one thing that Acrobat X Standard is crying out for, and that Adobe has again failed to deliver, is a major price cut.

Overall however I’d still call the new Acrobat X platform a major release, thanks primarily to the changes made to the free Reader X program.

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Amazon Kindle vs Sony Reader Touch: how do they handle PDFs?

Wednesday, September 29th, 2010

The latest generation of eBook readers from Amazon and Sony proves that, finally, the technology has come of age. They boast the latest E Ink screens with improved refresh rates, and a whole lot more besides. The Kindle, in particular, with its built-in Wi-Fi and 3G turns the consumption of novels into a totally new experience.

But there’s a hidden side to these eBook readers. They’re often used to consume dense, technical or academic material, usually in PDF format, and these documents are often awkward, containing diagrams, figures organised in tabular form and text organized in columns.

In the US the Amazon Kindle DX covers this sort of scenario perfectly, but over here you’re stuck with the smaller devices, so it’s critical that zoom features, text reflow and panning are easy to use. We’ve already noted in our full length review that the Sony Reader Touch PRS-650 does all this well, and better than the Amazon Kindle at that, but at the request of a handful of readers (human ones), here’s a more in-depth analysis and comparison. (more…)

Sorry, Windows, but where’s the PDF reader?

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

Sometimes life throws up its little ironies, and while they don’t necessarily make you laugh out loud they do cause the corner of your mouth to curl slightly into a grin and an eyebrow to rise just a bit. Today was one such occasion.

As a Mac user I’m told that one of the disadvantages I suffer is that I don’t have access to industry standard software or the sheer range of applications PC users enjoy. The fact that I’ve never, not once, been unable to find software to help me achieve whatever I’ve needed to is immaterial.

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The future for Acrobat.com – and for the office?

Monday, June 15th, 2009

Those with a long memory may well remember Adobe’s first attempt to conquer the business market with the launch of Acrobat Exchange and its promise of the “paperless office” built around the round-robin swapping of PDFs. The arrival of the internet largely put paid to that original all-encompassing vision but now, sixteen years later, Adobe is back for a second bite at the cherry with the announcement of the official out-of-beta launch of Acrobat.com.

So is Adobe likely to be any more successful this time around? The recent press briefing, given by product manager Eric Larsen and hosted within Acrobat.com itself, was certainly interesting…

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Acrobat, Flash and iPaper

Thursday, February 12th, 2009

In my last digital design column in the latest issue of the magazine I take a look at the long history of “iPaper”. It’s essentially the story of the holy grail for designers: a format that manages to combine the design strengths and reading experience of paper with the unbeatable advantages offered by the internet – universal, instant and effectively free publishing and delivery.

Back in my first column, 150 issues previously, I had thought it was obvious what format would come to fill this role: the web-optimised PDF. And, as the most common document format on the web after HTML and with semi-integrated playback in most browsers, to an extent it does. Generally though, despite all its other strengths, PDF has failed miserably in its web ambitions. 

So is there an alternative?

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Acrobat.com: From PDF to Flash

Friday, July 4th, 2008

As I said in my recent review, the launch of Acrobat 9 is the most important release in years. Naturally most of the attention has been on the incorporation of the Flash player into the Adobe Reader with all that this means in terms of media handling and interactivity.

However it’s possible that the associated launch of Acrobat.com will eventually prove even more significant.

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Adobe CS4 – First Thoughts

Friday, June 20th, 2008

Now that the dust has cleared on the launch of Acrobat 9 thoughts naturally turn to Adobe’s next major release Creative Suite 4. So what might we expect to see?

Well the launch of Acrobat 9 might well give us a very strong clue. The Acrobat applications are focussed on the business/office productivity market, but the introduction of new PDF capabilities gives the CS teams something to work with. And with Acrobat 9 that’s an understatement…

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Acrobat 9 goes Flash

Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008

Yesterday Adobe officially announced the launch of its latest Acrobat 9 so what are my first impressions?

I was invited down to London a month or so ago to the press briefing and it was clear that Adobe considers this a major release. And after the pitiful version 8 it really can’t help but shine.

The feature that Adobe was stressing is the new ability to handle Flash – but just how significant is this development? And come to that – just how new is it? And how welcome?

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