Acrobat 6: Long-Awaited Features for Professional Publishers
By Bernd Zipper
A new version of Acrobat introduces internal color separation, layer technology, preflight checking and comprehensive support for PDF/X. Although it has features galore for other markets, too, publishers will find it a boon to their production workflows.
Whenever there is a new version of Adobe Acrobat, expectations run high. A look at the beta version of Acrobat 6.0 Professional shows that the company has listened carefully to its users. With the release of Acrobat 6.0, Adobe has silenced even its harshest critics from the print and media industries. This release, the most important since Acrobat 1.0, has been completely updated. A variety of new functions for prepress and corporate users, and a new user interface, make Acrobat 6.0 one of the most comprehensive—and certainly among the most exciting—software updates of the last few years. Bernd Zipper, German technology and strategy consultant, reports on his initial look at the beta version of Acrobat 6.0.
High expectations in the prepress community
With the release of version 4, Acrobat became an essential part of the toolkit for everyone involved in the creation, processing and output of graphical documents—so much so that, today, we can scarcely imagine the printing and publishing world without it. So, when Adobe targeted version 5 to the needs of the office and the corporate world, it inevitably disappointed print and prepress users, who had hoped to gain functions such as color separation and preflighting. Now, with version 6, Adobe has finally satisfied the needs of these users. Acrobat 6.0 will give them a selection of functions like they've never seen before, functions that will greatly simplify many production processes. In addition, engineering users (as well as city planners and architects) will get many AutoCAD-related functions that make the new version an ideal mechanism for the exchange of CAD plans and drawings.
As part of the overhaul, Acrobat Reader has also been given new functions and a new name. The viewer is now called "Adobe Reader." It will be able to send data from filled-in forms, and it will have a better method of handling digital signatures. Here, too, the user interface will be reworked to match the new Acrobat style.
This article will focus specifically on Acrobat 6.0 Professional Version for Microsoft Windows. Because of operating-system limitations, some functions will not be available on the Apple Macintosh, at least in the initial release. (In particular, browser support for the Mac is not yet fully developed, particularly where functions for commenting and reviewing are concerned, and data interchange with external programs is less robust. See sidebar, "Adobe's Commitment to Apple's OS X.") The new version requires an up-to-date platform. On the Mac, that means OS X 10.2 or better; Apple's OS 9 is no longer supported. On a PC, the Pro version needs an NT-based Windows version (NT 4, Windows 2000 or Windows XP). The Standard version and the Adobe Reader will work with software as old as Windows 98 Second Edition.
Standard and Professional versions
1 Back when Acrobat 2.0 was in vogue, Adobe had a product called Acrobat Pro. Despite the name, Acrobat 6.0 Professional is not a revival of that product line.
Adobe has split the product offering into two versions, Acrobat Standard and Acrobat Professional.1 The split lets Adobe provide its two major markets—professional publishing and the enterprise—with versions that have the appropriate functionality for each. The pricing, too, will be appropriate: The standard version will cost $300 ($100 to upgrade from Acrobat 5), and the Professional version will cost $450 ($150 to upgrade). The initial release, will be the English-language version, followed shortly by French and German, then Japanese. By August, the Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Danish, Dutch and Swedish versions should be done. The Standard version will be localized for still more languages: Norwegian, Finnish, Chinese (simplified and traditional) and Korean.