We are excited to release Acrobat.com Workspaces to you, along with other updates and enhancements to our online services. They are all available right now from your Acrobat.com Organizer. Read on to find out more…

If you have not done so already, make sure you read Rick Treitman’s thoughts on how Acrobat.com Workspaces are ideal for coordinating work on projects with teams that span multiple organizations.

Welcome Workspaces! Get more done, faster.

Acrobat.com Workspaces truly are a better way of sharing files and getting projects completed with others outside of your organization, especially when compared to dealing with multiple e-mail threads with different file attachments — e-mail wasn’t really built to be a file management system. Instead of sharing documents one-by-one, you can simply create a Shared Workspace to which each of your collaborators will be granted access. When you add a file to the Workspace, it is automatically made available to anyone that you have invited to be a part of that Workspace. The same is true when adding participants: have you added a board member to your Irrational Number Enthusiasts Club? Just add her to the list of Workspace participants and she will instantly have all the relevant documents available to her upon signing in to Acrobat.com. Easy as pi.

But the best way to really understand what Workspaces can do for your team is to try them out for yourself…with your free Acrobat.com account you have the opportunity to create a single Shared Workspace, so follow these instructions to get started.

1. To create your first Shared Workspace, click the “New Shared Workspace” button in the left pane of your Acrobat.com organizer. Or, you can use this opportunity to say ‘hello’ to the new organizer toolbar towards the top of your screen: click the “New” button and choose “Shared Workspace”.



2. Don’t forget to name your Shared Workspace. Use something that describes the files that will be contained within it, such as the name of the project you are working on, or how the documents may be related to each other.
3. You can add files to your Shared Workspace by:
• drag-and-drop from anywhere in your organizer (HINT: click “All Files” at the top of the left pane to, well, see all files!);
• upload a file or import a supported document type from your own computer;
• create a new Buzzword, Tables or Presentation file.



4. For further organizational assistance, add folders to your Shared Workspace by opening the context menu for the Shared Workspace and choosing “New Folder” or by taking a trip back to the new toolbar, clicking “New” and choosing “Folder”. Again, don’t forget to name it. You can add files and documents just as described in the previous step.



5. When you are ready, sharing your Workspace is done in much the same way you might have been sharing files in Acrobat.com before. Either:
• open the Shared Workspace context menu and choose “Share…”
• click the “Share Workspace” button in the lower left of the Acrobat.com organizer window
• click the new “Share Workspace” button in the top right of the organizer



6. Add the e-mail addresses of those you are sharing the Workspace with (HINT: if you have shared with someone before, just start typing their name – Acrobat.com remembers whom you have shared files with).

   You have the option to let all or individual recipients administer the Workspace, or just access the documents and files contained within. If you wish, you can also send an e-mail message to notify them that you are sharing a Workspace with them. [Which is one thing e-mail was built for: notifications!]



7. Now that your Shared Workspace has been created, you can add and manage files and recipients at any time. Everyone involved in the project will see the Shared Workspace, and will always have access to the current version of a file, whenever they log in to their own Acrobat.com organizer.

Need to create more Shared Workspaces? Then consider signing up for an Acrobat.com Premium subscription plan.

But it’s not all about Shared Workspaces with this update to Acrobat.com. There is more for you to use…

It’s Personal.

In addition to your Shared Workspace, you will also notice a new Personal Workspace called “My Workspace” (see the screenshots above). This Workspace’s goal in your life is to show you the files that you have not yet shared with others through a Shared Workspace. It has another role: when a project ends, you can go ahead delete a Shared Workspace (or a Shared Workspace folder) to prevent access by others. But doing so will also delete the files contained within (don’t worry, Acrobat.com will warn you of that). So, before deleting that Shared Workspace or folder, select and drag the files and documents that you want to keep into your Personal Workspace for safekeeping.

You asked. We listened. An enhanced file organizer experience.

There are lots of improvements throughout the file organizer we know you’ll like. These enhancements were based on some great feedback we have had from you. Thanks!

• The left pane is now streamlined to focus on organizing your files, and the actions for creating, uploading and importing Workspaces, folders, documents and other files have been moved over to the top left toolbar.
• When you are ready to start sharing your files and documents with others, pay close attention to the location of the enhanced Share button (it is now context-sensitive) and some of the updated options available to you for managing recipients. We believe you will find the sharing options easier and more flexible to use. We’ll cover this area in more depth in another article soon.
• The section formerly known as “Lists and Collections” has been renamed “Tags”. Tags in Acrobat.com are a way for you to organize and show files based on labels or contexts that make sense to you personally. For example, in my own organizer I have tags called “confidential”, “training” and “draft articles”. We will take another look at those tags soon.
• Last but not least, you can now use common keyboard and mouse combinations such as Shift + click and Ctrl/Cmd + click to select more than one file in your Acrobat.com organizer before moving them to a Workspace or apply tags. Very handy.

Back in November 2009, Acrobat.com Product Manager and Buzzword Goddess Lisa Underkoffler described the “Unity” update as “the collaboration engine that will power everything we do going forward.” We strongly believe that these latest updates to Acrobat.com deliver on that vision. Keep on letting us know what you think through this blogs comments, by sending an e-mail to acrobat.com_feedback@adobe.com or via the Acrobat.com Ideas site at ideas.acrobat.com.