The Reader integration with HP Quick Test Pro is similar to the existing Flex integration with Quick Test Pro (see: http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/testing_with_QTP_flex3.pdf).

Adobe PDF Test Toolkit supports the following:

• Testing of PDF Forms (Acroforms and XFA forms - including dynamic forms) with Acrobat or Reader running as standalone applications or inside of a browser.


• Testing of complete form workflows with Acrobat or Reader and LiveCycle ES or SAP Interactive Forms by Adobe.

Based on customer feedback, we focused on PDF Forms workflows. We are excited by this technology and the opportunity to integrate Reader and PDF Forms into enterprise testing workflows. As an Adobe Labs technology, it should be considered an early preview and we'll be taking all feedback into consideration when planning future versions.

In order to strengthen protections for customers using our products, we are constantly engaged in security improvement efforts. This includes better security controls within the product itself, as well as methods to rapidly protect end-users against quickly evolving threats by reducing the window of exposure to new vulnerabilities.

As of today, Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.2 and 8.1.7 are shipping with a new "beta" updater technology, which will initially be in a passive state. We're delivering it to end-users as part of today's updates in this state so that we can enable a follow-on, invite-only, external beta program. Even though the new updater ships in a passive state, we have the ability to selectively activate it for end-users invited into the beta program, which will allow us to test a variety of network configurations encountered on the Internet in order to ensure a robust update experience. The purpose of the new updater, once it is active, is to keep end-users up-to-date in a much more streamlined and automated way. As beta testing progresses, we will continue to communicate pertinent details with you about the new updater, including when we expect it will be active for all users. If you are interested in joining the beta program, leave a comment to this blog post stating so.

Also added to the products, as of today's Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.2 and 8.1.7 updates, are two new changes in security user interface and control. We are moving more security awareness into the gold bar, which runs across the top of the document in the application chrome. In the past, if JavaScript had been disabled in the product, a dialog box would alert the end-user and provide further options. Now, when JavaScript is disabled, the gold bar will alert the end-user and provide further options. Our research has shown that this is a much friendlier and more effective way to interact with end-users on security matters. For more information, please see: CPS ID 50432.

Lastly, we have introduced the Adobe Reader and Acrobat JavaScript Blacklist Framework. The Framework provides customers granular control over the execution of specific JavaScript API calls. The purpose of the new JavaScript Blacklist Framework is to allow Adobe to protect customers against attacks that target a specific JavaScript API call. In this case, end-users and administrators can add that JavaScript API call to the blacklist, and block it from executing. Organizations can even block specific JavaScript API calls and keep their end-users from overriding that decision. For more information on the JavaScript Blacklist Framework, please see: CPS ID 50431.

As a SAFECode member, Adobe will collaborate with subject matter experts to identify and share proven best practices for software assurance, promote broader adoption of software assurance best practices into the cyber ecosystem, and work with businesses, governments and critical infrastructure providers to leverage these practices to manage enterprise risks. Adobe will take an active role in current SAFECode projects that address secure development methods, software integrity in the global supply chain, and the measurability of software security.

For more information on SAFECode, see: http://www.safecode.org.

Change in MIME Content-Type for .msi Installers
Currently, the MIME content-type for .msi files is set to text/plain. From September 19, 2009 and onwards, the MIME content-type for .msi files will be changed to application/octet-stream. According to our testing, this change will be more robust when downloading .msi through a variety of firewalls.

From an end-user perspective, there is no impact of this change in the way Adobe Reader is updated via the Adobe Updater.

Knowledge Base Article: http://go.adobe.com/kb/ts_cpsid_51355_en-us

Please complete the following survey to contribute to the future of Adobe Reader:
Click Here to take the Adobe Reader Survey

The survey should take 5 minutes or less to complete. The survey will run until January 31, 2009.

Please ask your friends and colleagues to take the survey too.

Thanks!

Sincerely,
The Adobe Reader Product Development Team

While end users care some about PDF size and other attributes, they care most that the PDF is visually accurate -- it contains everything they expect it to contain – nothing is hidden or truncated when it should be visible and whole.

Currently much of this testing is done by manual human inspection. This is tedious, time consuming, and labor intensive. There are reasonable ways to automate much of it and greatly reduce manual testing although some level of human verification will always be required.

Visual, or appearance, test automation for PDFs breaks into 2 areas:
1) Visualization/rasterization of the PDF into a form that a computerized human-equivalent eye can evaluate.
2) Comparison using a computerized eye between test results and baselines.
Please note that when comparing PDFs in this situation we do not care so much about PDF internals, since PDFs with very different structures can result in the same visual result. Rather we want to focus on how a PDF appears to the end user.

Rasterization

Rasterization is the process of converting image files to bitmapped images such as we would display on a screen to an end user. TIFF files are commonly used and probably the best format to use for rasterization and comparison purposes.

PDF rasterization should be done by the same software that the user will use to view PDFs. Since Reader itself cannot save rasterized files, you could use test automation software to run Reader and capture screen shots but this is awkward. Adobe Acrobat and LiveCycle are able to save rasterized versions of PDFs in TIFF format and they use the same rasterization engine that is built into Reader. So the most likely options for rastorization are to use either of these tools.

In Acrobat you can create TIFFs by opening a PDF, choosing “Save As…” from the File Menu, choosing “TIFF” in the “Save as type” pop up of the Save As dialog, selecting your location, and pressing save. This will create 1 TIFF file for each page in the PDF. You can use Acrobat’s batch function to do this on many files or you can use test automation software like QuickTest Pro and others to run Acrobat against a series of files.

Alternatively you can use LiveCycle, which in many ways is a server based Acrobat for building factories that create and manage PDFs. LiveCycle’s PDF Generation service can run through large sets of PDFs to create corresponding TIFFs. Please refer to LiveCycle documentation or training for instructions on how to do this.

Acrobat is most similar to Adobe Reader and matching versions typically ship at the same time as Reader, so Acrobat may be the best rasterization choice. LiveCycle may ship at a different time from Reader and so may have a slightly different rasterization engine version, but LiveCycle was also designed for handling large numbers of PDF files so using it may be better in many situations.

Comparison

There are many comparison options around, but for comparing images, one of the best is ImageMagick . The ImageMagick website has considerable documentation on how to use this tool and there are also some published books on it, so I won’t go into the details here.

As a high level summary, you should use your favorite scripting or other automation tool to point ImageMagick at pairs of files (one test to one base reference) and have your test automation system record which ones have significant differences. You can tune ImageMagick, to flag or ignore small pixel shifts.

Then, a human can review what the automated testing thought was significant to see what differences were valid or not. Depending on your automation skills, your test automation system might present original, baseline, and differences pages back to the tester for review and reporting bugs and refining the test system itself.

Recap

You will need to experiment quite a bit when setting up test automation for PDFs because situations vary.

Overall the steps are:
1) Establish your set of baselines – your gold standards.
2) Rasterize your baselines.
3) Create test PDFs from your new system that has changes.
4) Rasterize your test PDFs.
5) Compare tests to baselines.
6) Either report bugs, refine your test system, or decide that particular test files are more accurate than the original baselines and re-establish your baselines with these new files.

Go ahead and open up your browser and go to the main download page at: http://www.adobe.com/go/reader. At that page, in order to make things as easy as possible, we'll automatically try and offer you the most appropriate version of Reader. But, if you're after a different version, in the middle of that page, just click Different language or operating system?. You will be taken to a new page where you can specify which operating system and language you are interested in. Then, we'll offer you a list of supported Readers for that configuration. That's it!

The program is similar to those run by others in the software industry. Initially, it will be available to people using the Windows version of Adobe Reader 9. It’s completely anonymous and strictly "opt-in", which means you must make the choice to participate. It will be offered to a small percentage of Adobe Reader 9 Windows users automatically, but you can always enable it manually through the product if you’d like to participate. If you choose to participate, information about how you use Adobe Reader 9, such as how you use certain features and functions of the software, are sent to Adobe. But, again, no personal information is collected. Also, it won’t affect your experience with the product or its performance. It will just help us build a better Adobe Reader for you moving forward.

For more information, check out Lori's Blog Posting. You can also read our APIP FAQ.

1. Determining if Adobe Acrobat or Reader 8.1.2 is Installed

Windows
There are multiple ways to determine if Adobe Acrobat or Reader 8.1.2 is installed. First, both will display the 8.1.2 version number in their splash screens. To check, simply click Help >> About... Another method is to check the registry settings. For Acrobat, search for: SOFTWARE\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\8.0\Installer\Updates\812 and with Reader, search for: SOFTWARE\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\8.0\Installer\Updates\812. Lastly, you can also check Add and Remove Programs in the Control Panel.

Macintosh
There are two ways to determine if Adobe Acrobat or Reader 8.1.2 is installed on a Macintosh system. First, both will display the 8.1.2 version number in their splash screens. Simply click Acrobat >> About Acrobat or Reader >> About Reader. Second, check the CFBundleVersion String in the Info.plist for “8.1.2”. For Acrobat, open up the package contents for the Acrobat application file, open the the Info.plist, and look for the value associated with CFBundleVersion. For Reader, open up the package contents for the Reader application file, open the the Info.plist, and look for the value associated with CFBundleVersion.

2. Determining if Adobe Acrobat or Reader 8.1.2 Security Update 1 is Installed

Windows
There are several ways to determine if Adobe Acrobat or Reader 8.1.2 Security Update 1 is installed. First, check Add and Remove Programs in the Control Panel, but make sure you to enable the “Show Updates” check box. Then, Adobe Acrobat or Reader 8.1.2 Security Update 1 will show up as a child entry underneath 8.1.2. Another way is to click Help >> Adobe Plug-Ins. Click on “Comments”. The API should be dated 6/7/2008. The last way to check for the update is to query the registry setting, which is HKLM\Software\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\8.0\Installer\VersionSU= ”1” for Acrobat, and SOFTWARE\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\8.0\Installer\VersionSU= ”1” for Reader.

Macintosh
There are two ways to determine if Adobe Acrobat or Reader 8.1.2 Security Update 1 is installed. First, simply click Acrobat >> Adobe Plug-Ins or Reader >> Adobe Plug-Ins, then click on “Comments”. The API should be dated 6/7/2008. The other way, is to look for the following files: /Library/ApplicationSupport/Adobe/AcrobatProPatch812su1.txt AND AdobeAcrobatProfessional.app/Contents/MacOS/SelfHealFiles/SecurityPatchStamps/APP_Adobe/AcrobatProPatch812su1.txt for Acrobat, and /Library/ApplicationSupport/Adobe/ReaderPatch812su1.txt AND AdobeReader.app/Contents/MacOS/SelfHealFiles/SecurityPatchStamps/APP_Adobe/ReaderPatch812su1.txt for Reader.

In the United States, the revenue collection branch of the United States Treasury is the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Since 1996, the IRS has offered taxpayers Web access to tax return forms and publications in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF), a move that yielded impressive results: the agency saves millions of dollars annually by decreasing the money it spends on printing, storing, and mailing tax materials.

Have you ever noticed that you can go directly to www.irs.gov, download a form, fill it out and save it locally using Adobe Reader? If you’re interested in providing this kind of service to your customers, check out: Adobe LiveCycle Reader Extensions ES.  You can even enable digital signatures and collaborative features using this solution.

Also at RSA, we often get questions around our security practices when building our products. To find out more, just check out Adobe Security Software Engineering.

Interested in Beta testing the latest Reader? We're still accepting participants. Just CLICK HERE to sign up.