The Adobe Acrobat 8 family for IT professionals

Transcription

1 FAQ The Adobe Acrobat 8 family for IT professionals TOPICS 1 Choosing the right Acrobat products for your organization or department 2 Using Adobe Acrobat 8 products 7 Customizing, deploying, and supporting Adobe Acrobat and Reader products 9 Extending Acrobat 8 products Choosing the right Acrobat products for your organization or department The Adobe Acrobat 8 family of products enables business professionals to communicate and collaborate with confidence using Adobe PDF, the de facto standard for electronic document exchange. The needs of your users vary greatly, which is why Adobe offers different versions of Acrobat software. The following information describes what each product offers. For more detailed product information to help you plan your purchasing, refer to the Acrobat family product comparison matrix at Q: What products are in the Adobe Acrobat family? A: Adobe Acrobat 3D Version 8 offers design engineers and technical publishers a complete and more secure way to collaborate with extended teams on 3D designs via PDF documents. Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional enables business professionals to reliably create, combine, and control Adobe PDF documents for easy, more secure distribution, collaboration, and data collection. Adobe Acrobat 8 Standard enables people to reliably create, combine, and control Adobe PDF documents for easy, more secure distribution and collaboration. Adobe Reader 8 includes new document viewing options, advanced collaboration, increased time-saving ways to work with PDF files, and other new features to help you more securely and consistently communicate and collaborate using PDF files. Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional is a scalable, highly customizable, extensible web conferencing solution. It enables business professionals to communicate and collaborate instantly with up to 2,500 participants through easy-to-use and easy-to-access online personal meeting rooms. Adobe Acrobat Connect is the next generation of web conferencing software that enables up to 15 people to instantly communicate and collaborate through easy-to-use, easy-to-access online personal meeting rooms. For more details about these products, see

2 Q: What are the system requirements for Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional? A: Windows Intel Pentium III processor or equivalent Microsoft Windows 2000 with Service Pack 4, or Windows XP Professional, Home Edition, or Tablet PC Edition with Service Pack 2 Microsoft Internet Explorer MB of RAM (512MB recommended) 470MB of available hard-disk space; cache for optional installation files (recommended) requires an additional 270MB of available hard-disk space 1,024x768 screen resolution CD-ROM drive Internet or phone connection required for product activation Macintosh (Professional edition only) PowerPC G3, G4, G5, or Intel processors Mac OS X v MB of RAM (512MB recommended) 1,060MB of available hard-disk space 1,024x768 screen resolution DVD-ROM drive Q: What language support does Adobe Acrobat 8 offer? A: Adobe Acrobat 8 supports English, Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish. Q: Which web browsers are supported for viewing Adobe PDF documents? A: Windows: IE 6 and 7, Firefox 1.5, Mozilla 1.7, and AOL 9 Macintosh: Safari or later Using Adobe Acrobat 8 products Q: Can I combine files from multiple applications into a single, searchable PDF file? A: Yes, you can combine an Adobe PDF document from Microsoft Office, Outlook, Internet Explorer, or any application that prints. You can easily optimize and convert documents, spreadsheets, s, and websites to more secure Adobe PDF files that preserve the formatting and integrity of the original files. Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional allows you to create an Adobe PDF package a group of multiple documents packaged into a single Adobe PDF file that retains the properties of individual documents. You can combine multiple files from multiple applications into a searchable, sortable PDF package that maintains the individual security settings and digital signatures of the original PDF files. With a PDF package, you choose an Adobe PDF cover sheet, and then the other documents are attached to the cover sheet. When you open the package, you can access the cover sheet as well as individual files in a sortable, editable table of contents. All the files in that package can be searched, printed, or individually extracted. You can even add documents to the package after it has been created. 2

3 Q: What are the differences between PDFMaker and the Adobe PDF Printer? What are the advantages of enabling and using PDFMaker? A: PDFMaker Files created in a number of applications (including Microsoft Access, Excel, Internet Explorer, Outlook, PowerPoint, Project, Publisher, Visio, and Word, as well as Autodesk AutoCAD) can be converted directly to Adobe PDF files using either a menu command or a toolbar button. In all cases, Acrobat installs a PDFMaker and uses it to convert from the native authoring application format to Adobe PDF. Compared with the Adobe PDF Printer, PDFMaker delivers additional functionality to: Tag documents for accessibility to the visually impaired Add hyperlinks Add bookmarks Integrate Microsoft Office comments with Adobe PDF file comments Include cross-reference and footnote links in Word Retain object data from within Visio and AutoCAD Create PDF files from Visio diagrams while preserving the layers of the original diagrams Exercise worksheet conversion options within Microsoft Excel Create PDF files of PowerPoint presentations containing slide transitions and animation Adobe PDF Printer In an authoring application such as WordPerfect, use the Print command with the Adobe PDF printer to convert your file to Adobe PDF. Your source document is converted to PostScript and fed directly to Acrobat Distiller for conversion to PDF, without manually starting Distiller. The Adobe PDF printer does not offer any of the additional capabilities of PDFMaker. The Adobe PDF printer creates untagged PDF files. A tagged structure is required for reflowing content to a handheld device and is preferable for producing reliable results with a screen reader. Acrobat includes PDFMakers for a variety of third-party software applications. The following table shows which applications are supported by Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional for Windows: Product Microsoft Word 2000, 2002, 2003 Microsoft Excel 2000, 2002, 2003 Microsoft PowerPoint 2000, 2002, 2003 Microsoft Outlook 2000, 2002, 2003 Microsoft Visio 2000, 2002, 2003 Microsoft Project 2000, 2002, 2003 Versions supported by PDFMaker Autodesk AutoCAD 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 Microsoft Internet Explorer 6, 7 Microsoft Publisher 2002, 2003 Microsoft Access 2000, 2002, 2003 Lotus Notes 6.0, 6.5, 7.0 3

4 Q: What options are available to control the size of PDF files? A: Reducing the size of Adobe PDF files improves their performance particularly when they re being accessed on the web without altering their appearance. You can sometimes reduce the size of an Adobe PDF file simply by using the Save As command. This resaves the file and does not require access to the source file used to generate the Adobe PDF file. If you receive a large PDF document, you can use the PDF Optimizer in Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional or Acrobat 3D Version 8 to reduce the file size. You can also do this using a batch process to fix lots of files all at once. When combining files you also have the option to choose a file size and conversion setting, from lower quality (smaller file size), to the default quality setting, to higher quality (larger file size). Q: How can I build intelligent Adobe PDF forms that help collect information efficiently? A: An Adobe PDF form is an electronic document that can collect data from a user and then send that data via or the web. Interactive form fields let the user fill in the form using his or her computer. You can create forms using Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional or Acrobat 3D Version 8. Both of these applications include form tools and Adobe LiveCycle Designer 8, a dedicated, easy-to-use form design application. LiveCycle Designer supports XML data standards and schema for form development. With Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional and Adobe Acrobat 3D Version 8, you can run a Form Field Recognition tool from the Forms menu. This will scan through the entire form, automatically creating fields where they are required. With this tool you can convert a paperbased form to a fill-and-print form in seconds. You can also enable a form so that anyone with free Adobe Reader can fill it in, sign it, and save it. You can design a form from scratch by first defining the form data you need to collect. Determine the size of the form and then lay out the static elements, such as text, rectangles, text labels, and images, in an application such as Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, or Microsoft Word. Or you can create your entire form in Adobe LiveCycle Designer, which lets you lay out static elements in addition to interactive and dynamic form elements. Q: Do I have to be a developer or programmer in order to create PDF forms? A: No. Nonprogrammers can create electronic PDF forms using Adobe LiveCycle Designer, Acrobat Professional, or Acrobat 3D. Q: Can I use Acrobat Professional to convert large, complex documents authored in Autodesk AutoCAD and Microsoft Visio? A: Yes, in Acrobat Professional or Acrobat 3D, you can create Adobe PDF files from applications such as Autodesk AutoCAD, Microsoft Office, Project, Access, Internet Explorer, Visio and Publisher, among others. When creating PDF files with PDFMaker, in AutoCAD or Visio, you can preserve layers, retain object metadata, and work with embedded scale. Q: How can I streamline my review process using Adobe Acrobat? A: Using Adobe Acrobat 8, you can set up your review, invite participants, and track the responses from reviewers. You can conduct reviews for many types of content by sending out a PDF version of the source document for review. You can either perform a shared review on a server using a network folder, Microsoft Sharepoint workspace, or WebDAV folder, or conduct an -based review. Shared review allows all reviewers to see each others comments. The built-in Review Tracker in Acrobat 8 provides helpful tools for each phase of the review. You can monitor responses, send reminders, and even invite additional reviewers. Instructions in the How To window and Document Message Bar assist reviewers through the process. 4

5 Q: What kinds of document security features does Adobe Acrobat 8 offer? A: Acrobat 8 offers users the following capabilities to increase document security: Examining documents for hidden information (such as metadata, comments, attachments) and then easily removing it. Using the redaction tool to find and permanently remove visible content from documents, often required for compliance with the Freedom of Information Act, Privacy Act, and Health Information Portability and Accessibility Act). Certifying documents to indicate the authenticity of the source of the content. Digitally signing a PDF document or form to indicate approval or consent to the information in the form. Restricting who can open, edit, and print PDF documents by using permission and password settings. Defining document control policies based on passwords or digital certificates. Applying server-based security policies to PDF documents, which is especially useful if you want others to have access to PDF documents only for a limited time. Creating reusable custom security policies. Adding security settings to PDF attachments and using security envelopes. Q: How can I keep track of a document s use, such as whether it has been viewed, printed, or copied? A: Using extended document security features available through Adobe LiveCycle Policy Server, you can track whether a document has been viewed, printed, copied, and more. You can set and modify security policies dynamically, even after documents have been published and distributed beyond your firewall. You can apply expiration dates to limit opening, offline viewing, printing, or forwarding of documents. And you can generate an auditable record to meet regulatory requirements. In addition, both Acrobat 8 Professional and Acrobat 3D Version 8 provide access to a hosted version of Policy Server called Adobe Document Center. You can access Document Center from the Secure task button. Q: How can I archive documents to help meet regulatory requirements and prove compliance? A: PDF is a published file format specification available to anyone who wants to develop tools to create, view, or manipulate PDF documents. For long-term preservation of electronic documents, there is a new standard digital file format based on the PDF 1 standard called PDF/A. PDF/A was approved by the International Organization for Standards (ISO) in May Using Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional, records managers, archivists, and industry compliance professionals can easily preserve and protect important electronic documents and information as fully searchable, protected PDF/A-compliant documents. For more information, visit 5

6 Q: Does Adobe support other ISO standards for PDF? A: Yes. Acrobat supports PDF/X and is expected to support a standard still in development called PDF/E. PDF/X facilitates the reliable delivery of press-ready, high-end color advertisements. Acrobat 8 extends the existing support of PDF/X to the most current release of the PDF/X ISO standard. The PDF/E standard is still in draft form. PDF/E has been developed to facilitate the need for the reliable exchange of engineering documentation in the manufacturing, geospatial, and building industries. It will enable compact, accurate printing of engineering drawings, incorporate complex data (such as 3D graphics and object data), and allow changes and markups to be more accurately and consistently represented through the document s lifecycle. PDF/E is expected to be supported in future releases of Acrobat and other Adobe products. The Acrobat family of products supports a variety of industry standards in addition to these ISO standards. Consequently, Acrobat and Adobe PDF can be easily integrated into an existing IT infrastructure to extend and enhance digital document workflows. For more information on Adobe and standards, visit 6

7 Customizing, deploying, and supporting Adobe Acrobat and Reader products Q: Does Adobe offer any tools to support large-scale or enterprise-wide installation of Acrobat and Reader 8 and previous versions? A: Yes, you will want to download the free Adobe Customization Wizard 8 utility (formerly InstallShield Tuner) to customize and deploy the latest versions of Adobe Acrobat and Reader throughout your enterprise. Adobe Customization Wizard 8 is designed to help IT professionals take greater control of enterprise-wide Adobe Acrobat and Reader deployments. With it you can customize Acrobat and Reader installer and application features prior to deployment. The Customization Wizard provides a graphical interface to the Windows Installer for Acrobat and enables IT administrators to make modifications to the installer via a Transform File (or MST file). These modifications customize the Acrobat installer and the look and feel of Acrobat before deployment. They can be set to run anytime, anywhere, throughout the enterprise, whether the install is pulled from a server or pushed silently. Adobe Customization Wizard 8 works with Adobe Reader 8 and Acrobat 8 Professional, Acrobat 8 Standard, and Acrobat 3D Version 8, enabling IT administrators to: Optimize the behavior of the installer by including silent installation, preserialization, reboot, multilingual, and custom setup choices Remove previous versions of Reader and Acrobat 6.0 and 7.0 Suppress the EULA, registration prompts, and the Getting Started window Customize key application preferences turn off automatic updates, add and set default job options, and customize collaboration and security settings Help prevent users from modifying certain preferences Remove shortcuts from the desktop and the Start menu Customize Acrobat Distiller job options files and Adobe PDF file printer settings Customize security settings for digital signatures and Adobe LiveCycle Policy Server Edit each Adobe Acrobat application s registry and installer tables Customize file attachment handling within PDF files, including specifying which file types you want to block Add or edit files that will be installed Preconfigure Acrobat Connect or disable it Adobe Acrobat can be customized quite significantly. Acrobat and Reader have provided IT-focused customization tools since Acrobat 5.0. Reflecting Adobe s continued commitment to the IT administrator, Adobe Customization Wizard 8 was built in-house by Adobe engineers. Acrobat installations can now be deployed more quickly and supported more easily than ever before. Q: Is there a cost to use the Wizard? A: Adobe Customization Wizard 8 is a free utility download. 7

8 Q: Are there volume licensing options available? A: Yes. Adobe has made some important changes to the Adobe Open Options (AOO) licensing programs. Here are a few: Please visit and view the AOO Discount Calculator for your market segment to see the full list of TLP and CLP products and point values: Commercial, Education, or Government. Adobe Electronic Software Delivery (ESD) is available for most Adobe products ordered through TLP and CLP. You can now enroll in our licensing membership program, CLP, directly from the Adobe website. CLP enrollment no longer requires a physical signed agreement, and can instead be completed through an online enrollment process. Note: If your organization is already enrolled in CLP 4.0, your membership is automatically upgraded to CLP 4.5, and you do not need to re-enroll until your current membership expires. Please see the CLP page at www. adobe.com/aboutadobe/openoptions/clp.html for more information. For more information about volume licensing, see Q: Does Adobe support and test the deployment of Acrobat with industry-standard software deployment tools? A: Yes, Acrobat supports industry-standard deployment tools such as: IBM Tivoli Software Distribution Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) Microsoft Active Directory and Group Policies Q: Do the Reader and Acrobat installers support industry-standard installer and patch technology? A: Yes, the Reader and Acrobat installers use the standard Microsoft Installer, or MSI, technology. Patches are released in the industry-standard MSP format. Q: Can administrators host Acrobat on a centralized server? A: Yes, administrators can host Acrobat on a centralized server using industry-standard tools, such as Citrix Presentation Server or Microsoft Windows Terminal Services. For the most up-to-date information on deploying and hosting Acrobat family software, visit For information on licensing in a server environment, see section 2.3 of the EULA at www. adobe.com/products/eulas/pdfs/gen_wwcombined_acroman _0101.pdf. Q: How easy is it for users to learn how to work with Adobe Acrobat? A: The Acrobat interface, newly simplified in version 8, is designed so that users will be guided through the workflows or features. The software includes the following instructional content and helpful features: Getting Started guide Redesigned task-based user interface How To pane displayed in the active Acrobat window with step-by-step, context-sensitive help for a variety of Acrobat tasks, including document commenting and markup. The pane can be hidden when not needed Searchable Help guide accessed from the Help menu Contextual help when participating in a review, filling in a form, or signing a PDF document For users who require additional help, Adobe provides links to self-paced courses, instructorled courses, books, and seminars at In addition, a variety of tutorials and other support tools are available for free to users on the Adobe website at 8

9 You can learn from experts or other IT professionals at For customer support, visit For end-user training resources, visit Commenting help in Adobe Reader 8: Within any given PDF document, Acrobat 8 Professional users can enable commenting in free Adobe Reader. When Adobe Reader users open such a document, they are presented straightforward instructions on how to use the tools. Extending Acrobat 8 products Q: Does Acrobat offer a software development kit (SDK)? A: Yes. Anyone can download the Adobe Acrobat 8 SDK. The Acrobat SDK contains documentation, headers, sample code, and development tools for customizing Acrobat 8 Professional, Acrobat 8 Standard, and Adobe Reader 8, as well as earlier releases of Acrobat. With the Acrobat SDK, developers can also build plug-ins, integrate Acrobat 8 Standard and Acrobat 8 Professional into other solutions, and automate processes. For more information, see Q: Can I extend the functionality of Acrobat through plug-ins? A: Developers can create plug-ins that: Manipulate and modify Adobe PDF document pages and content Display Adobe PDF documents in the window of another application Customize the user interface Control a view session Extend functionality with productivity tools Communicate with other applications, such as document management systems Q: What types of support and resources are available to developers? A: For information about developer tools, documentation, specifications for creating Adobe PDF documents, and Adobe LiveCycle server solutions, go to or Q: Does Acrobat support JavaScript? A: Yes, Acrobat has built-in support for JavaScript, so developers can automate the handling of XML-based Adobe PDF forms and related web, database, communication, commenting, and user interface capabilities. Q: Does Acrobat support XML? A: Yes, Acrobat uses XML in Adobe PDF forms. XML helps to facilitate the exchange of form data with back-end computer systems. Adobe LiveCycle Designer (included with Acrobat 8 Professional for Windows), enables organizations to easily create intelligent, XML-based Adobe PDF forms. Adobe LiveCycle Designer lets users drag and drop XML industry-standard schemas onto form fields to help automate finance, insurance, or government workflows. By integrating Adobe LiveCycle server products with Adobe Acrobat, organizations can use XML technology to prepopulate forms with information specific to end users. Once forms are completed, LiveCycle server products can use XML schemas to route form data automatically to back-end systems. You can extract data as XML into your own schemas from Adobe PDF files created with Acrobat or Adobe server products. Applications that use Java and other languages easily integrate Acrobat with web services using SOAP. More information about the Adobe XML architecture is available at enterprise/xml.html. 9

10 Q: Does Acrobat support LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) capabilities? A: The Acrobat 8 family supports VeriSign certificates for digital signatures and targeted encryption. In addition, the VeriSign public LDAP server software is preinstalled exclusively in the Acrobat 8 family. LDAP capabilities help simplify business-to-business and business-tocommerce document exchanges. An organization can create a digital certificate for each employee and add employees to its own LDAP-compatible directory. Any employee can then easily encrypt Adobe PDF documents and share them with fellow employees. Adobe Systems Incorporated 345 Park Avenue San Jose, CA USA Adobe, the Adobe logo, Acrobat, Acrobat Connect, Distiller, Illustrator, InDesign, LiveCycle, PostScript, Reader, and Better by Adobe are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. Mac OS and Macintosh are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the United States and other countries. Intel and Pentium are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. PowerPC is a trademark of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both. Microsoft, Windows, and Windows Server are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Java is a trademark or registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Printed in the USA /07 10