See you next year!

Thanks,
Rebecca

–Rebecca Staley

The AdobeMAX Awards

Donna Baker's MAX session on PDF files for Web Designers

Keynote

The DEX booth

William Lau and Mangesh Bhandarkar before presenting the DEX services at MAX

Well, day one of Adobe MAX 2011 has come; I write this from the break area of the show floor, where I’m sharing a table with several people whom I have never met. This, I think, is one if many things that makes MAX such an amazing experience: everyone comes to this massive convention center in downtown LA, knowing perhaps no one and perhaps a few others from his or her own company. Now, only halfway through the first of three long days, people are mingling. They share tech-y jokes and participate in the same “bring your own device” labs, they sit with other strangers at lunch and wander in tandem across the massive showroom floor. Developers and designers rub elbows while attending demos or watching this morning’s keynote speech – and the energy has been palpable. We’re all here to learn from each other and be inspired, and the first few hours have been no disappointment. Scroll down to see the first few pictures of this space and the booths that fill it, especially our own Acrobat pods in the main Adobe booth!

–Rebecca Staley

Monday, October 3

12:45 PM – I Didn’t Know Acrobat Could Do That!

Speakers: Chris Converse & Patti Sokol

Roll up your sleeves and join us for a fun, interactive session about Adobe Acrobat. We’ll take you on a whirlwind tour of functionality guaranteed to open your mind to new ways to work with PDF and SWF or FLV together. You’ll leave with samples and templates and a better understanding of the potential of Acrobat.

3:30 PM – Automating Acrobat: Best Practices for using Actions and Scripting

Speaker: Thom Parker

Learn about the two mechanisms in Adobe Acrobat for automating tasks: JavaScript to enable hidden functionality and Actions for grouping multiple tasks into a single step. These two features can greatly improve workflow efficiency, reduce human error, and cut down on training time for employees who need to use these workflows. This session will cover the details of using JavaScript for Acrobat automation and creating guided Actions. We’ll include practical working examples.

5 PM – I Didn’t Know Acrobat Could Do That!

8-10 PM - Meet the Teams

Swing by Monday night, 8-10 p.m. and catch up with the Acrobat team!

All-day – Win a Tablet!

See how fast you can sign a document using EchoSign and enter for a chance to win a Samsung Galaxy Tablet at the Adobe EchoSign Pod.

Tuesday, October 4

8:30 AM – Acrobat for the Web Designer

Speaker: Donna Baker

Learn how to get PDF files to behave the way you and your readers want on the web. We’ll share best practices for helping to ensure that PDF files are easy to read, navigate, and access, as well as for making PDF files as streamlined as possible without losing quality.

12:30 PM – I Didn’t Know Acrobat Could Do That!

2:45 PM – Accelerate Business Results with Adobe Document Exchange Services

Speakers: William Lau & Mangesh Bhandarkar

Learn how Adobe Document Exchange Services can save you time and money. See how Adobe customers are using cloud-based solutions to accelerate business results, including: Adobe EchoSign, FormsCentral, SendNow, CreatePDF, ExportPDF and Acrobat.com.

All-day – Win a Tablet!

See how fast you can sign a document using EchoSign and enter for a chance to win a Samsung Galaxy Tablet at the Adobe EchoSign Pod.

Wednesday, October 5

8 AM – Pushing the Envelope with Interactive PDF from InDesign

Speaker: Chris Converse

Learn how to expand the possibilities for creating interactive PDF files using InDesign and a few special tricks with Acrobat X Actions. Standardize your InDesign templates and let the new guided Actions in Acrobat X do the heavy lifting by automating the addition of JavaScript and button actions to take your interactive documents to new levels.

11 AM – I Didn’t Know Acrobat Could Do That!

Ongoing Events and Giveaways

“Try out” Acrobat X

Find your inner cowboy! Get hands on experience with Acrobat X. Stop by the AcrobatUsers.com booth (#325) to “Try Out” and audition for a role in an Acrobat activity! We’ll be giving away prizes each day to participants, watch @Acrobat for more details.

Vote for Your Favorite Feature

Stop by the AcrobatUsers.com booth to vote for your favorite Acrobat feature and you’ll be entered to win a copy of Acrobat X!

Daily Giveaways

Follow @Acrobat for giveaways each day at the Acrobat and EchoSign pods in the Adobe booth and at the AcrobatUsers.com booth.

Cloud Services

Come by Adobe booth to receive an Acrobat Service of your choice FREE for 6 months.

CreatePDF Mobile App

Follow @Acrobat on Twitter to find out when we’ll be giving away CreatePDF mobile app codes.  The first five stop by the Adobe booth will get to test out the new CreatePDF app.

MAXme Points

We’ve got codes! Be on the lookout for a QR code at our pods to increase your points!

Make sure to download the Acrobat at MAX cheat sheet and follow @Acrobat on Twitter to hear the latest info and giveaway updates.  We look forward to seeing you there!

If you missed the session, or want to check on a few details, you can find the full recording here.

Don’t forget to check back in here at the Acrobat blog, our Facebook page, and the Acrobat Twitter account for more info and updates on AdobeMAX.  The event runs October 1-5, and there’s still time to register.  See you there!

• AdobeEchoSign – Securely sign, send, track, and store contracts online
• Adobe FormsCentral – Easily create, distribute, collect, and analyze online forms and surveys
• Adobe SendNow – Instantly send and manage digital documents without the hassle of overnight delivery services and FTP sites
• Adobe CreatePDF and ExportPDF – Create PDF documents online and convert PDF files to Word
• Acrobat.com – Improve team collaboration with web conferencing and shared workspaces

So join William Lau, senior product marketing manager, and Mangesh Bhandarkar, principal product manager, of the Acrobat Solutions team on Tuesday, Oct. 4^th at 2:45PM in room 511C!  You can register here.

If you’re attending AdobeMAX, don’t miss this great opportunity to learn how your business can run smoothly and save you money using our unique business solutions.  See you there!

Joel Geraci

I’m back at MAX this year as a speaker again presenting “Pushing the Envelope with Interactive PDF from InDesign”. I’ll be showing how I put together our interactive success stories using InDesign for the layout and Acrobat Actions to automatically add the interactivity. You can read an in depth article on what I’ll be showing in my article Actions in Action at Adobe and the follow on article Using the “Video Player Plus” with the “Insert VPP JavaScript” Action. I’ll take you through the process step by step and explain my logic behind it all.

For more on Joel’s MAX presentation, click here.

Thom Parker of Windjack Solutions is back at MAX this year and will be presenting “Automating Acrobat: Best Practices for using Actions and Scripting”. Thom has been involved with the Acrobat and PDF Community for quite a few years. In 2004, his company WindJack Solutions released its first Acrobat plug-in, PDF CanOpener, and followed that with two scripting related plug-ins AcroButtons and AcroDialogs in 2005. Thom is a prolific contributor in the user forums at acrobatusers.com, having answered thousands of questions since its inception. He has authored over 60 tutorials on a wide variety of Acrobat and PDF scripting topics for the site. Thom spends much of his time immersed in developing custom scripted solutions for clients spanning a broad spectrum of industries all over the globe, and providing custom on-line training in Acrobat and PDF scripting topics.

For more on Thom’s MAX presentation, click here.

Chris Converse and Patti Sokol, two MAX veterans will, be taking over for Lori DeFurio this year and presenting “I Didn’t Know Acrobat Could Do That!”

Chris Converse is a graphic designer and multimedia developer specializing in web design and development, interactive media, print, motion graphics, and CD-ROMs. Converse is co-founder of Codify Design Studio (codifydesign.com), which specializes in both graphic design and the technologies that make the design happen across media. Codify standardizes on many Adobe technologies, from developing rich-media PDF files that leverage dynamic Flash applications, to Ajax-based web solutions built on either Adobe Spry or jQuery framework.

Patti D. Sokol brings over 15 years of enthusiasm and experience in teaching Adobe products to her role as an Adobe Solutions Consultant. Her in-depth knowledge and facility for clear and concise explanations enable her to show clients how to solve problems using Adobe tools and products. A dynamic and interactive instructor and presenter, Patti is a Certified Technical Trainer and an Adobe Certified Instructor for Acrobat, Illustrator, InDesign, Lightroom, and Photoshop.

For more on Chris and Patti’s MAX presentation, click here.

Donna Baker, of Baker Communications, is a freelance graphic designer, and author of a couple dozen books about design software, and Web design. About half of the books she’s written are on Adobe Acrobat. Donna has also written a monthly article for Acrobatusers.com since the early days of the site. In the last year or so, she’s started to narrow her focus to all things Acrobat. She’s an Adobe Community Expert, an Adobe Certified Expert, and in her spare time she’s one of the online Adobe Acrobat Help system moderators.

For more on Donna’s MAX presentation, click here.