The legal industry uses a lot of paper and typically relies on files. Delaware-based Law firm Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor, LLP, decided to trade reams of paper for Acrobat-based electronic processes  The program has helped them archive legal documents in PDF and streamline and organize processes from court filings to collaboration on cases.

Acrobat has helped the firm increase administrative productivity by about 20 percent. It also helps ensure that legal mandates for electronic filings are met when submitting documents to courts and safeguards documents containing sensitive and confidential client information. Additionally, Acrobat’s PDF Portfolios have helped strengthen cases by providing a polished, rich and engaging way to package content. 

Check this video out to learn more about the firm and how it’s using Acrobat.

Margaret DiBianca, an associate at the law firm, has become such a champion of using electronic processes that she started a blog about how law firms and other organization, can “go paperless.”  She’s got some great tips – take a look for yourself.

Lori DeFurio, Group Product Marketing Manager, Acrobat Solutions

Just this week, Android reached the million download mark in the Android Market. Also in that time period, Adobe Reader has received an average of four stars from over 4,000 users who have rated it to date. eWeek recently picked Adobe Reader as one of the Top 10 Apps Motorola Droid X owners should acquire at launch.  

These milestones are just the beginning of an exciting journey of enabling users the ability to view PDF files on Android mobile devices. Based on user feedback, we released an update to Adobe Reader for Android earlier this month with performance enhancements and the ability to open PDF files from local storage on Android mobile devices. We look forward to further enhancing the product and providing you with a great user experience for viewing and working on PDF documents on mobile devices.

Let us know what you think about Adobe Reader for Android. Provide your feedback on the product either via comments on this blog or through the Adobe Reader user forums (http://forums.adobe.com/community/adobe_reader_forums/android). 

If you haven’t downloaded and used the Adobe Reader for Android yet, isn’t it time you joined the million other users who have?

Thank You!

Aman Deep Nagpal, Senior Product Manager, Acrobat Solutions

What is MAX? MAX is a unique opportunity to connect with thousands of business leaders, designers and developers to shape the future of digital media together.  

But there’s more. As at previous MAX conferences, we’re conducting an awards program to recognize the best uses of Adobe software for creating expressive applications that enable people to engage with ideas and information anytime, anywhere and on any device.

And we’re looking for a few good Acrobat apps. Apps that show off the versatility of Acrobat, including demonstrated examples of Acrobat Dynamic PDF. Acrobat Dynamic PDF enables you to connect, interact, and engage in powerful new ways to streamline how you work, collaborate, and create high impact communications.

Whether you’re in enterprise, government or SMB, show us your inventive uses of Acrobat to acquire, serve, or communicate with customers and constituents around critical activities such as product ordering, accessing services, opening accounts, managing correspondence, and so on. Keep in mind that applications submitted by third-party developers must be in production and include a real-world customer example.

There’s still time to show off your creativity and ingenuity. The contest ends on August 13, 2010, and finalists will be notified on August 30. Winners will be announced on Oct. 26 at the MAX Awards Ceremony. Get the details here. And get going!

Lori DeFurio, Group Product Marketing Manager, Acrobat Solutions

We’d also like to share a directory of Acrobat users and evangelists that are currently tweeting interesting collaboration observations, tips and tricks, industry news, Acrobat musings, updates. 

Check out the following aliases to access additional Acrobat insights and news: 

• @acrobatdotcom (Acrobat.com news and insights)
• @acrotips (Acrobat Tips and Tricks from Stephanie Baartz-Bowman, Principle Product Marketing Manager).
• @acroboy (Acrobat and Acrobat.com product evangelist insights from Ali Hanyaloglu, Marketing Manager, Enablement)
• @acrobytes (News, tips and insights from Kurt Foss, editor of AcrobatUsers)
• @acro_dave (Product management views from Dave Stromfeld, Senior Product Manager)
• @acrolaw (News and updates for the legal community from Rick Borstein, Business Development Manager, Desktop)
• @adobeedu (News and information from the Adobe Education Team, for Higher Ed and K-12)
• @AdobeGov (Updates from Adobe’s Government Team related to federal, state, and local government.)
• @Adobe_Reader (Reader news, tips and tricks from Steve Gottwals, Group Product Manager)
• @pdfsage (Acrobat and Reader product evangelist insights from Leonard Rosenthol’s, PDF Standards Architect)
• @rtarkoff (Industry insights from Rob Tarkoff, SVP, Digital Enterprise Solutions, Adobe Systems) 

Is there a Twitter account related to Acrobat missing here, let us know, we’d like to continue to add to this list as a resource for Acrobat users. See you on Twitter! 

Mark Grilli, Director of Product Marketing, Acrobat Solutions

Well, go ahead and try it out. And it’s not just Microsoft Word documents that can be converted – there are many other file types we support. If you’d like a jump start on conversion, check out this tutorial on acrobatusers.com.

As your file is being converted by our service, and not on your own computer, there are a few things that you need to consider to ensure that the PDF file creation process goes as smoothly as possible. We know you have 52 other things to do before the end of the day, so I hope these tips help you get that important document converted to Adobe PDF quickly and reliably using Acrobat.com.

Where there’s a will (or a printer driver), there’s a way: Converting document formats that are not directly supported
So you have spent all your evening hours working on that impressive document, only to find that it’s in a format that isn’t supported by Acrobat.com Create PDF. What can you do? Well, your first option is to see if your application can export to one of the supported formats. But have a look at the results you get first, as things may change, depending on your software’s capabilities. If all looks good in the exported version, you should be all set to create a PDF file online. Another option, which is especially useful if you have more complex layouts, is to “print” the document to an Adobe Postscript print file (.ps), which can be converted by our service. There are a few configuration steps you’ll need to take in to account before you do that, but it’s all documented for you here, and it’s free.

You didn’t want that image looking like mud, did you?
Document authoring applications such as Microsoft Word give you the option to embed or link to an image that you place on to the page. If you chose “embed” you should be OK when using the Acrobat.com Create PDF service. However, if you choose “Link to” (or similar, depending on the application) and then you upload the document to Acrobat.com for conversion to PDF, the Create PDF service doesn’t have all the image data it needs to include it in the PDF file. So what you get is a PDF with images that won’t look as good as you originally intended, or images that are missing. So, the general rule is to make sure you embed all of your images.

That custom font you downloaded, while impressive, may not give the results you expect
The Acrobat.com Create PDF team tries their best to support as many typefaces as possible. But if you have used a font that the Acrobat.com online services don’t have access to, or can’t use due to font vendor licensing restrictions (which you are adhering to, right?), then the resulting PDF file may not look as you expected. All you can really do here is to use a more readily available typeface in your documents.

Making sure you can actually upload the original file
This is a somewhat obvious one, but worth re-stating: check to make sure your file is in one of the supported formats and versions for the Acrobat.com Create PDF service. Keep in mind that the document needs to be less than 100MB in size. And although we run anti-virus software on our online services when you upload a file, you should always run the latest anti-virus software scan on your computer, to make sure your original source files are free of any malicious nasty stuff.

We’ll be featuring a Tip and Trick each month on the Acrobat Blog. Feel free to post any suggestions for tips and tricks you’d like to see highlighted in our comments section or on  AcrobatUsers.com.

Ali Hanyaloglu, Marketing Manager, Enablement 

Now PDF files can contain videos and hyperlinks. They support everything from digital signatures to 3D interactive animation to policy protection, which has led to an explosion in usage and incredible success. Within the government sector, PDF has become a standard for simplified electronic document exchange.  And business of all sizes rely on PDF files to share information across the office and across the globe. Meanwhile, in today’s fast paced, interconnected world, Acrobat has evolved into a dynamic technology, capable of delivering richer, more compelling experiences and facilitating fluid collaboration, while maintaining trust in its security and reliability. Acrobat now enables knowledge workers to deliver their best work – every day.

With today’s re-launch of the Acrobat Blog, we aim to create a place you’ll enjoy visiting to catch up on Acrobat-related news, industry insights, trends and ponderings. We’re joining forces with the Acrobat product management team to expand on their popular Shred the Document blog here all within the same blog (all posts have been archived for your reading enjoyment). The updated blog will continue to feature the inside scoop and featured posts from the product team, Acrobat highlights, as well as tips and tricks and discussions. Yes, discussions. A blog in a vacuum is useless, so help make this re-launched blog awesome by commenting, offering your insights, questions and ideas. Don’t be shy.

We’ll also post regarding Acrobat.com, Reader and anything else that helps foster education and thinking around how we communicate – be it on something as timeless as paper to as timely as web conferencing or collaboration. Onward!

Mark Grilli, Director of Product Marketing, Acrobat Solutions