Lori DeFurio

October 26, 2009

Forrester Study on Future of Collaboration

The introduction of PDF Portfolios and inclusion of Adobe Flash in Acrobat 9 will allow for the creating of branded and visually compelling materials. If you're interested in learning how to create a PDF Portfolio these short tutorials are great. If you're interested in experiencing PDF Portfolios, the PDF Portfolio Gallery on AcrobatUsers.com has quite a collection.

Also - be sure to visit Ali's blog posting on this study where he talks about the collaboration aspect, and Joel's blog posting on this study where he outlines what it means to IT professionals.

Next Steps

• Get your own copy of the report.
• Attend an eSeminar on "Building the Future of Collaboration". (Presented on Thursday, December 3, 2009 10:00 - 11:00 a.m. US Pacific Time and again on Thursday, December 10, 2009 10:00 - 11:00 a.m. US Pacific Time)

September 15, 2009

Become an Acrobat 9 ACE

Recently, I discovered an Acrobat User Community member has created a web site where you can purchase practice questions to help you study for the ACE exam. I've included one of the questions and how it looks in the practice test.

Be sure to let me know if you get your certification on Acrobat 9.

September 4, 2009

Acrobat in Times Square

For the next two months, the Acrobat online ad will be seen by thousands in Times Square.

If you are on the corner of Broadway and West 47th Street look up at the side of the W Hotel. There you will see Acrobat's new, "Did you know?" multimedia ad. Take a picture or a video and send it to me.

August 29, 2009

It's Conference Season again...

I always look forward to fall -- back to school for the kids, and extended learning opportunities for Acrobat users as conference season begins.
First, we have the Acrobat and PDF Central Conference, hosted this year in Minneapolis, September 22-24. Acrobat Experts from around the globe are "in the house" -- from our own Ali Hanyaloglu, Lisa Croft, and Paul Gilbertson to PDF gurus like Ted Padova, Duff Johnson, Angie Okamoto, Bob Connolly, and Thom Parker.
Here's a tip -- if you are (or become) a member of the Acrobat User Community, you'll get $100 off the 2-day registration fee (regularly $395).

Next up -- Adobe MAX. This year, we'll be in Los Angeles. I'll be hosting my hands-on lab "I didn't know Acrobat could do that!" and there is so much more. Take a look at this episode of Lori's Corner where Joel Geraci interviews Ted Patrick and Doug Winnie about what's happening at MAX.

If you're aware of other conferences this fall where Acrobat will be a topic, let me know.

August 7, 2009

Acrobat & Xcelsius - a match made in ...

Xcelsius Present, an SAP offering, allows you to take data from Microsoft Excel and turn it into something much more useful for presentations -- charts, graphs, etc. -- and with the latest version you can now export to PDF directly, allowing for rich, engaging, yet portable information.

I created a short intro to match the format of Lori's Corner on Adobe TV, which will direct you to a demonstration I prepared showing multiple examples of how you can use the two products together.

Please let me know if you've created examples and I'll post them here or on AcrobatUsers.com

Enjoy your summer!

June 15, 2009

Announcement: Acrobat.com now 'shipping'

I'm so excited that Acrobat.com has moved from 'beta' to 'shipping' today. In addition to the free services which have been available for the past year, there are premium services increasing meeting and file size, and support.

Please visit http://blogs.adobe.com/acom/2009/06/hello_business_world_welcome_t.html for a full description of what's new, what's improved, and pre-release tools for business productivity.

May 14, 2009

Announcing Lori's Corner on Adobe TV

As many of my readers know, I've been hosting a 'tech corner' on AcrobatUsers.com for the past few years entitled "Lori's Corner" with tips & tricks and a 'Dear Lori' section where people can ask me Acrobat questions. During the redesign of AcrobatUsers.com (December 2008) the information in the tech corner was integrated into the tutorials section.

It is important for me to continue a relationship with the Acrobat Community and therefore, I would like to announce a new Lori's Corner - now on Adobe TV. The first episode is a book review of titles on Acrobat 9. My guest is Ali Hanyaloglu.

Enjoy- and if you want to send me a "Dear Lori" -- I'll welcome your question.

April 25, 2009

TIP: Converting Excel to Adobe PDF Options

A customer asked me if it was possible to convert an Excel workbook with multiple worksheets into individual PDF documents, each named by the worksheet tab.

Well... it is... and here's how:

1. Select Create PDF and in the Acrobat PDFMaker dialog box select all worksheets

2. Open the resulting file and notice there are now bookmarks that match the worksheet names

3. Select Document > Split Document.

a.Select Top-level bookmarks; select Output Options

b. Select Use bookmark names for file names

And now with just 2 actions (Create PDF & Split Document), you have your individual files.

March 19, 2009

The Ultimate Tourney Guide

On Sunday night, the NCAA (men's college basketball in US) announced the 64 teams participating in their yearly tournament to determine the best basketball team in the country. Adobe along with ESPN have partnered to bring an interactive PDF document to your desktop to allow you to learn about the teams (via streaming video), watch the progress of the tournament bracket, and participate in daily polls.

This document is a great example of what's possible with Acrobat (and Reader) 9 now that we have Adobe Flash run-time in the product.

Let me know your experience, and I hope your team wins!

March 9, 2009

Acrobat & Adobe Reader 9.1 Update Available

An update to Adobe Reader 9 and Acrobat 9 is now available. In addition to a security update, there are a few more items:

Updated Software Support

To ensure compatibility with the latest software releases, this update includes support for:

• Microsoft Windows Server 2008
• IBM Lotus Notes 8.5 (specifically for Acrobat PDFMaker in email and using Notes for collaboration)
• Autodesk AutoCAD 2009: Acrobat PDFMaker installed in AutoCAD and Acrobat’s 3D Import options

Additionally, there’s support for:

• Catalan and Basque languages
• Using the Pencil tool to add an electronic signature if you’re using a TabletPC or tablet/stylus device

The PDF Portfolio templates posted in August are now included in the update, and of course, some bug fixes.

Where's the software?

February 26, 2009

Volume Licensing for Acrobat

I'm happy to say that Adobe has launched a new page today -- entitled Volume Licensing programs for Adobe Acrobat software.

This page compares and contrasts the savings and benefits under the TLP (Transactional Licensing) with CLP (Cumulative Licensing) volume license programs; has links to detailed information and a link to subscribe to the Acrobat IT Tips and Tricks Newsletter.

Protecting Planet Earth - one PDF document at a time...

A new white paper featuring Adobe Acrobat has been published outlining how organizations have moved from paper to electronic, with PDF as the core -- to reduce their carbon footprint on Planet Earth.
For example, Bureau Veritas, a global engineering consulting firm, estimates that by eliminating paper and reducing work hours, they saved approximately 50 trees and 22,000 gallons of potable water on a typical power plant project.

January 11, 2009

Announcement: Survey for Adobe Reader Users

The Adobe Reader Team has posted a survey today asking what you want most in the next versions of Adobe Reader. The survey should take 5 minutes or less to complete and is available until January 31, 2009.

December 15, 2008

Addressing New Encryption Laws in Nevada and Massachusetts

Earlier this year, laws were passed in both Nevada and Massachusetts requiring PII (personally identifiable information) be encrypted when stored or transmitted. The Nevada law went into effect October 1, 2008. The Massachusetts law will go into effect in January 2009.

In the text of the laws no specific technology or methodology is called out, but I'm happy to say that both Acrobat and Adobe LiveCycle solutions can be used to meet these requirements.

In the text of the laws no specific technology or methodology is called out, but I'm happy to say that both Acrobat and Adobe LiveCycle solutions can be used to help you meet these requirements. For example, PDF documents that might contain PII can be encrypted using Acrobat 9's new 256-bit AES encryption or LiveCycle Rights Management; these PDF documents can certified and secured using digital signatures; and Acrobat 9 can examine documents for hidden information and PII can be searched and permanently removed using redaction tools.

I'll continue to update this post as new information surfaces around the laws and specific solutions that will address these two laws, and of course, any new mandates in 2009.

PDF Portfolios created by Adobe Employees

As part of an internal contest at Adobe, a few employees took the plunge and created some great PDF Portfolios using the built-in templates. These are now posted in the PDF Portfolio Gallery at AcrobatUsers.com. Take a look!

Video Formats Supported by Acrobat/Reader 9

In researching a Dear Lori I discovered this great table outlining formats and usage in Acrobat and Adobe Reader 9.

December 10, 2008

Announcement: Acrobat Channel on Adobe TV

I am very happy to announce that we now have an Acrobat Channel on Adobe TV.

At this time, there are two shows - Acrobat Tips & Tricks and Customer Stories. Each show will continue to build out new episodes.

Stay Tuned!

December 2, 2008

PDF Portfolios on the Web (Part 2)

Games

PDF Portfolio Gallery is live!

November 25, 2008

ANNOUNCEMENT: Update to Acrobat 9 Pro Extended

Adobe has just made available a free download that delivers updated 3D CAD translators for Acrobat 9 Pro Extended. As a result, the product now supports the latest version of many of the major 3D CAD file formats.
The updated translators leverage technology Adobe gained as part of its 2006 acquisition of Trade & Technologies France. The product update, and additional information, is available from the Adobe web site. New Supported CAD format versions with this update:

November 24, 2008

TIP: Editing PDF documents with hyperlinks

A customer recently asked me "I tried editing a sentence in a PDF document which had a hyperlink. I used the TouchUp Text tool to delete the sentence. However, I was left with a blue line which I could not eliminate. I used every tool on the drop down menu incl the Link tool but to no avail. Can you tell me what I can do?"

And my answer: "Links are “on top” of the PDF page, and often the original application will generate the text as well as a link (in your case a blue line) the PDF document. You’ll need to use the TouchUp Object Tool to delete the line as it is an object vs. text. The TouchUp Object tool is in the Advanced Editing toolbar (Acrobat 8 Professional or Acrobat 9 Pro/Pro Extended)

Adobe MAX: European Edition

If you missed Adobe MAX in San Francisco, we'll all be at Adobe MAX in Milan next week. I will be repeating my hands-on lab entitled "I Didn't Know Acrobat Could Do That!" which will cover Flash integration in Acrobat 9, creating PDF Portfolios, and more. Hope to see you there.

November 23, 2008

"Thermo" -- Flash Catalyst

Last week at Adobe MAX in San Francisco, I found an hour to sit in a session that had nothing to do with Acrobat or PDF. This was on Flash Catalyst (code named "Thermo"). All I can say is "WOW". This is really cool technology. It allows designers to design (without writing code) and coders to get comps from a designer that already have the code behind it!
If you get a chance - take a look at the information on Adobe Labs and sign up to get notified when the public beta is available.

August 15, 2008

PDF Portfolios on the Web

Adobe Reader 9 was released at the beginning of July, and now, just a few weeks later, we're seeing PDF Portfolios on the Web. PDF Portfolios allow the content creator to wrap the information in customized PDF Portfolio template that leverages the Flash Player runtime which is part of Acrobat & Adobe Reader 9. To best view these portfolios, I recommend using Adobe Reader 9 or Acrobat 9. You can download Adobe Reader 9 or a trial of Acrobat 9 for viewing.

For example BNET posted today 4 PDF Portfolios in their Business Library section:
a. BNET Energy: The Green Enterprise
b. BNET BookBriefs: Own Your Job, Don't Let It Own You
c. BNET BookBriefs: Make Your Business Stand Out From the Crowd
d. BNET Best Practices to Managing Employees

PCWorld has highlighted this PDF Portfolio, entitled PC World's Guide to Mobile Living on their home page.

And I was alerted to 2 more from Nikkei Business Publications (both in Japanese):
An example of an on-line magazine with examples of embedded 3D, images, and multimedia and tips for How to Conduct Effective Presentations

I hope you enjoy these great examples of what you can do with PDF Portfolios. If you know of some PDF Portfolios on the Web - let me know!

August 14, 2008

What are the differences between Acrobat products?

Everyday someone asks me "is [name some functionality] in Standard? or Pro? or Pro Extended?" and typically I point them to the product comparison matrix on Adobe.com. This is great for some of the questions, but then I'll have people ask me more detailed differences. So... we've created a detailed product comparison matrix. This will be posted on Adobe.com shortly, but I wanted to get it to my audience as soon as possible.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Acrobat 9 PDF Portfolio Contest

Come one, come all…. AcrobatUsers.com is hosting a contest for the best PDF Portfolio. Entries will be judged based on use of Acrobat 9 features, originality & creativity, and overall polish & aesthetics. All entries will be displayed in the new PDF Portfolio Gallery on Acrobatusers.com (coming soon). First place will be a box of Acrobat 9 Pro Extended (Windows) or Acrobat 9 Pro (Mac); 2nd place is an iPod Nano; and 3rd place is a T-shirt.

The contest is open now, and will run through October 7th, 2008. I’ve already submitted my entry – made up of Adobe literature. I encourage you to take a stab at it. Creating a PDF Portfolio template is fun.

Also – please note -- you do not need to buy Acrobat 9 to participate – just download the free 30 day trial – http://www.adobe.com/tryacrobat.

July 19, 2008

How do I create document previews of my Adobe Presenter 7 presentations?

I posted a tip on my tech corner over at AcrobatUsers.com. It shows you how to ensure that there will be a preview available when viewing an Adobe Presenter-created PDF document in a PDF Portfolio or using the preview function of your operating system.

There's another option for doing this as well: open the output in Acrobat 9 Pro or Pro Extended and select the Flash Tool. Then select a poster from your desktop -- Acrobat support bmp, pdf, gif, jpg, or png as options.

July 1, 2008

WooHoo! Adobe Reader 9 is here!

Adobe Reader 9 is now freely available from Adobe.com. It is currently available in English, French, German, and Japanese for Windows (2000 SP4 and higher) or Mac OS X (10.4.11 and higher).

Get a copy, and then download these examples of documents created with Acrobat 9:

• this PDF Portfolio, which contains some of the Acrobat 9 marketing materials and a Flash movie.
• this Flash application which includes a flash controller, flash playbar, flash movie and captions which can be useful for accessibility requirements, or subtitles for localization.

and, let me know if you have some samples created with Acrobat 9 that I can showcase here.

PDF Widget on Acrobat.com

One of the cool new features of Acrobat.com (Adobe's new free hosted services — currently in public beta) allows you to embed a widget directly in your HTML page (like I've done below) - to allow you to view the PDF content — inline — in the HTML page before deciding if you want to download it. For example, this file is now 10 MB after I attached the exercise files to the PDF document for convenience.

(Please note: you'll need Adobe Flash Player installed to view this content)

How do you do this yourself?

1. Login to Acrobat.com. If you don't have an account yet, don't worry. It's free - and you just click Sign Up to get started.
2. Upload the file you want to make available in your HTML page.
3. Select Copy Embed Code from the details pod (Figure 1) or if you are looking at all of your files (figure 2)
   just click on the arrow to the right of the file name and select Copy Embed Code from the dropdown.
   

   Figure 1. Document is open

   Figure 2. Viewing all documents

4. Place the copied link into your html page, similar to this example:

<html><title>Demonstration of using PDF Widget in a Web Page</title>
<body><p>The following is a preview of PDF content hosted on Acrobat.com</p>

<p><object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/

shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,115,0" width="365" height="500"> <param name="movie" value="https://share.acrobat.com/adc/flex/mpt.swf" /> <param name="quality" value="high" /> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"/> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/> <param name="flashvars" value="ext=pdf&docId=1826d5f7-ab86-4350-9590-d55c7a18f1c5"/> <embed src="https://share.acrobat.com/adc/flex/mpt.swf" quality="high" pluginspage="http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="365" height="500" wmode="transparent" allowFullScreen="true" flashvars="ext=pdf&docId=1826d5f7-ab86-4350-9590-d55c7a18f1c5"> </embed> </object></p>

<p>Really cool, right?</p>

</body></html>

And my HTML page looks like this

Figure 3. HTML Example displayed in Safari browser.

Now I can flip through the file, and determine if it is indeed the information I wanted, and then select Download or Share from the menu, and I'm directed to Acrobat.com.

Notice here in Figure 4 that I'm prompted to download (vs. preview) due to the fact that here is additional functionality in this PDF supported on in Acrobat and Reader -- that is basically the fact that I've attached the exercise files to the PDF document as an attachment.

Figure 4. Message appears when viewing in Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader delivers the best experience.

Enjoy!

June 25, 2008

Adobe Product Improvement Program - What is it?

Now that Acrobat 9 is available, once you install any of the windows versions of the product, you will notice a new option called the Adobe Product Improvement Program (APIP). Oh, and when Adobe Reader 9 is available, it will also have this functionality.

APIP is an opportunity for you to help us improve Acrobat, in a similar fashion to the product improvement programs run by others in our industry — like those from Microsoft, Google and Intuit.

You might wonder why Adobe has decided to go down this path. Well... we're just opening up a new channel for customers to provide us feedback. Today, we have multiple venues to gather feedback from our customers — user groups, focus groups, participation in pre-release programs, and so on. This is another way for you to provide feedback to help us improve Acrobat and our goal is that the information collected will help us create a better Acrobat/Adobe Reader in the future.

So what happens when you participate?

#1 information about how you're using the product, for example, how you use certain features and functions within the application are sent to Adobe, but no personal information is collected — it is 100% anonymous.

#2 participating will not affect user experience or performance of Acrobat (or Adobe Reader) and will be virtually invisible to you. Basically, when you quit Acrobat or Adobe Reader the collected information is sent to Adobe (no 3rd party is involved)

Please be aware - and this is important - this is an "opt-in" program — what does that mean? It means, by default the opportunity to participate is turned off. You have to consciously make the choice to elect to participate. You will be prompted one time only — typically on the 5th launch of the product.

You'll see a screen similar to this (Figure 1) and as seen in the screenshot - the default is "No, thank you".

Figure 1. Adobe Product Improvement Program dialog box in Acrobat/Reader 9

You need to select “Yes, I would like to help make Acrobat even better” to participate. If you decide to go with the default of "No, thank you" now, and you change your mind later, it's easy to participate — just select Help > Improvement Program Options (Figure 2) and you'll see the Adobe Product Improvement Program dialog box (Figure 1) again. This time, just select "Yes, I would like to help make Acrobat even better", and you're in!

Figure 2. To recall the APIP dialog box or to learn more, select Help > Improvement Program Options

I'm sure you're wondering, what's next? Will Adobe use this in other products? Sure. Again, this is another great way for customers to provide us feedback and for us to incorporate that feedback into products moving forward. Stay tuned. The feedback from our Acrobat and Adobe Reader users will help us determine the "what's next" and "when".

If you need or want more information on this program, you have two options:

1. Select More details... from the APIP dialog box (Figure 1) or,
2. Visit the APIP site where you'll find the FAQ and any additional information as it becomes relevant.

I encourage you to take a look - and participate if you want to be a part of Acrobat's future development.

June 23, 2008

Reminder -- Acrobat 9 eSeminar

I will be presenting Redefine the Way You Communicate, a one-hour eSeminar on Thursday, June 26th at 9:00 am Pacific and will repeat the content again at 12:00 noon Pacific. If you're not based in the Pacific time zone, you can visit http://www.timeanddate.com/ to do a time zone conversion.

The topic will be Acrobat 9 — how can Acrobat and PDF help you be more productive in your day-to-day tasks. I will cover quite a range of topics including Acrobat's built-in workflows for collecting feedback — either feedback in a fillable PDF form, or feedback on documents as part of a review.

As you may have heard, or read earlier, we've added Adobe Flash to Acrobat and Adobe Reader 9, so I will review how you can use Adobe Flash to punch up presentations, create PDF Portfolios to deliver your information, and embed multimedia in your documents to help your reader understand exactly what you're trying to convey.

And, as a final treat... I will go over improvements for creating PDF documents — from web pages, from your clipboard, or by scanning paper to PDF.

Hope you can make it!

Click here to register/attend.

June 19, 2008

Demonstration: Distributing Fillable Forms on Macintosh

Here's another short video tutorial -- this one show how to distribute and collect data from your fillable PDF form -- on a Macintosh.

June 6, 2008

Demonstration: Creating Fillable Forms from Adobe InDesign

June 2, 2008

Acrobat 9: A revolutionary release

The marriage of Flash and PDF (just like the marriage of Macromedia and Adobe) creates a union stronger than the separate parts. That’s right – the Adobe Flash runtime (based on version 9) is baked right into Acrobat and Reader. That means that any Flash content you’ve added to a PDF document on your computer – either Flash Video (FLV) or a Flash animation or application (SWF) – will just work on anyone else’s computer – as long as they’re using Acrobat or Adobe Reader 9.

The Acrobat Family.

We have three products in the family now -- Acrobat 9 Standard, Acrobat 9 Pro, and Acrobat 9 Pro Extended. Each product fulfills a certain market segment – for example, Acrobat 9 Standard is great for creating and distributing PDF documents and forms! That’s right – Acrobat 9 Standard has the ability to create fillable PDF forms, distribute these forms, and collect the information in a simple and streamlined fashion. I’ve included a quick demonstration of this process.

Acrobat 9 Pro (formerly Acrobat Professional) continues to be our workhorse product for people who need to work with PDF documents – either to work more closely with others, like using the commenting tools and workflows to collect feedback, to ensuring your documents are sanitized, to working with PDF documents for print production. If you want to learn more about improvements and updates to collaboration, take a look at The Same Page – a blog focused on Acrobat and Collaboration.

And the newest addition – Acrobat 9 Pro Extended – is the ultimate toolset for working with PDF documents. Acrobat 9 Pro Extended has all the capabilities of Acrobat 3D version 8, but also so much more… There’s a Video-to-Flash transcoder which allows drag-and-drop of any type of multimedia format onto Acrobat 9 Pro Extended, and it’s converted to Flash video automatically. And, Adobe Presenter – a powerful add-in for Microsoft PowerPoint, is included! This technology is so cool. It allows you to add audio, video, and SWF in a PowerPoint presentation and then save it to PDF for viewing offline. If you want a deeper look at the differences between the products check out the feature matrix.

Oh.. and one more thing... Acrobat 9 is now available in 28 languages! To see the full list you can refer to the Language Support page.

I expect to share more with you this week, and please feel free to send me comments so that I can help you understand the Acrobat 9 family.

If you want more information...

Take a look at the blogs and articles on AcrobatUsers.com. These contributors have been in the Acrobat pre-release program and can share their first-hand experience with the product family.

Also.. feel free to sign up to be notified when the free Acrobat 9 trial download will be available.

October 23, 2007

ANNOUNCEMENT: Update for Acrobat/Reader (8.1.1) available today

The latest update for Acrobat and Adobe Reader is available now. This release addresses a security vulnerability on Windows recently identified in addition to some other issues (i.e. bugs) identified on both Macintosh and Windows versions.
Downloads:
Adobe Reader 8.1.1 (Windows)
Adobe Reader 8.1.1 (Macintosh)
Adobe Acrobat Professional 8.1.1 (Macintosh)
Adobe Acrobat Professional & Standard 8.1.1 (Windows)
Adobe Acrobat 3D 8.1.1 (Windows)

Just In...

5:00 pm Tuesday, Oct 23: The auto updater is now working for both Acrobat and Reader.

September 25, 2007

Next up ... Adobe MAX

Adobe is hosting three Adobe MAX 2007 conferences this year:
North America: Chicago which starts on Sunday
Europe: Barcelona starting October 15 and
Japan: Tokyo on November 1 and 2.

I'm excited to return to MAX this year, attending in both North America and Europe, hosting a hands-on session called "I didn't know you could do that!" and hanging out at the Acrobat User Community stand. At our kick-off event in Chicago, there are multiple sessions dedicated to Acrobat and/or PDF – Jim King is going to cover standards; Thom Parker has a great talk entitled Pimp my PDF, where he will cover how to jazz up your audience's PDF experience. This session is not to be missed! And as Johnny L mentions in his blog, the sneak peek session is always a highlight.

If you're attending, please feel free to track me down.

July 6, 2007

AcrobatUsers.com members exceeds 15K

As of July 1st, AcrobatUsers.com now has over 15,000 members registered. Most of these members also belong to an Acrobat Chapter in one of 20 cities around the world. Our NYC chapter is #1 in total registered members, and will be holding their July meeting on Tuesday. The guest speaker is Mike Richmond from Adobe. If you want to attend via the web - drop by http://adobechats.adobe.acrobat.com/nyc02 at 12:30 pm ET on Tuesday, July 10th. The Dallas chapter is creeping up on NYC with a 30% overall increase in members during June to a total of almost 800 members. I'm going to make a trip to Dallas in the fall to visit this very active group.

Congratulations to Orlando - our newest chapter, and the chapter with the greatest growth in June. I spoke at their inaugural meeting on June 19th. When I arrived in Orlando (late afternoon) it was 97 degrees and humid! The evening was a blast! We had an excellent turnout and great pizza from a local vendor.
As we move into the summer, there will be less face-to-face meetings however, be sure to check back at the website to see who's hosting online meetings via Acrobat Connect.

June 13, 2007

Font Packs to use with Acrobat or Reader 8

If you're having trouble finding the Asian Font Packs and/or the European Extended Font Pack for Acrobat/Reader 8 on Adobe.com - not to worry. They're on our FTP site now as MSI files, and will be posted on Adobe.com later this summer as full installers (similar to Acrobat 7).
The Eastern European Font Pack includes Thai, Hebrew, and Arabic.
The Asian fonts - Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Japanese, and Korean are each in their own MSI file.

Please note: with these MSI files - you must copy the MSI installer to an empty directory and then run the installer from that directory. We've seen problems if there are other files in the directory. This is only an issue with the MSI files - this will not be a problem when we get the files posted on Adobe.com as full installers.

June 5, 2007

ANNOUNCEMENT: Acrobat 8.1 available today

As of today, an update to Acrobat 8, upgrading Acrobat 8 to Acrobat 8.1 (Professional & Standard) is available via Adobe Updater (in Acrobat). A download on Adobe.com will be available later this month (I'll update you when it is live)

The 8.1 release works with Microsoft Office 2007 and Microsoft Vista. Both PDF as a file format and Acrobat as an application are now "first class" citizens in these environments.

In Office 2007 - we are conforming to the new ribbon UI and are fully integrated. (Figure 1)

Figure 1. Acrobat Ribbon in Microsoft Word 2007

In MSFT Vista - PDF will preview similar to other supported file formats, and of course, you can create PDF by simply right clicking on supported file formats (Word, Excel, PPT, JPG, etc.) (Figure 2)

Figure 2. Right-click on any supported application in Microsoft Vista to create Adobe PDF.

My favorite integration with Office 2007 is with Outlook 2007. Now, when you open an email message in preview mode that has a PDF attachment – you see the PDF in the preview pane. You can view full page, or page width, and even navigate multi-page files. (Figure 3)

Figure 3. PDF Preview in Outlook 2007.

Also - at the request of our customer base, we're supporting 64-bit Citrix and Windows environments. Acrobat is still a 32-bit application, but for folks running 64-bit Citrix environments, or who load Acrobat on a 64-bit Windows system, Acrobat will work as advertised.

For additional information, I recommend you review http://www.adobe.com/acrobat and http://www.acrobatusers.com/ for articles and tips from our contributors on the updates in Acrobat 8.1.

Adobe Reader 8.1 is also available today.

More…

April 14, 2007

Announcement: Activities at AIIM/OnDemand

This week is the annual AIIM/OnDemand conference. The conference will be at the new Boston Convention Center, and Adobe has quite a few activities planned. Three events that don't require a conference pass include:

• Acrobat Developer Workshop on Wednesday afternoon, hosted by Joel Geraci, Technical Evangelist, Acrobat/PDF


• Adobe User Group meeting on Thursday morning, hosted by Ali Hanyaloglu and I


• Creative Suite 3 Deep Dive, either Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning, presented by Tim Plumer.
  

March 28, 2007

Acrobat 3D Version 8 live on Adobe Labs

There's a first time for everything... I'm happy to see our first Acrobat family product on Adobe Labs! Acrobat 3D Version 8 is the next generation version incorporating the excellent technology acquired from TTF in early 2006. Take it for a drive!

Announcement: AEC Seminar Series

Clearly, I'm not an expert in the area of AEC (Architecture, Engineering, Construction) but I wanted to alert you to this 4-part seminar series on Acrobat for industries focused on 2D and 3D designs. Each session is just 30 minutes and held via Acrobat Connect, so you can watch in the comfort of your office. In addition to these 4 30-minute segments starting tomorrow (Wed, March 28), there is a bonus 2-hour recap (in case you missed one, or you just want to do it all in one day) on May 2nd. Please see this web page for information and registration.

March 12, 2007

Adobe Acrobat for IT Professionals eSeminar Series

Joel Geraci, our Acrobat/PDF Technical Evangelist, is hosting 5 eSeminars to address topics of interest to IT professionals and Acrobat/PDF developers: Security, Collaboration Best Practices, JavaScript & Forms, and the Acrobat SDK. These seminars will run from March 21 - June 13 on Wednesdays at 9:00 am Pacific.
More information and registration information is available here.

March 8, 2007

Acrobat 8 ACE is available now

The Acrobat 8 ACE exam is now available. For Acrobat 7 we offered two exams (Print Production and LiveCycle Designer), however, we now consolidated into one Acrobat 8 test. There will be a recertification exam (testing on just the new features, via the internet) in a few weeks, and the full exam is now available at testing centers.
For more information see - http://www.adobe.com/support/certification/ace.html.
The exam prep guide hasn't yet been posted yet on Adobe.com so I've attached a copy here.
Good Luck - and let me know if you're Certified on Acrobat 8 - I'll promote it here.

March 6, 2007

PDF Conference Online

North American-based Acrobat & PDF Conferences have been in existence for years -- I went to my very first conference in San Diego in 2000 as a brand new Acrobat Evangelist. As technology has evolved, I've seen a shift in the needs of the Acrobat and PDF community from large, annual events to smaller more focused activities, and now, web-based events.
On March 20 & 21, I'm participating in the first ever online PDF Conference. Entitled Optimize Your Workflow with PDF Forms, the two 3-hour sessions will be entirely on Forms - how to create forms; how to collect data; how to add JavaScript.
And the conference will wrap up with Power Panel session -- a group of experts available for real-time responses to the audience questions.
I'll be there... will you?

February 14, 2007

AcrobatUsers.com Turns One

Today marks the one year anniversary for AcrobatUsers.com. If you haven't had the chance to visit yet - please stop by. If you've been following us this year - we appreciate the support. We have over 10, 000 registered members, 18 chapters, and lots of new functionality introduced in recent months. I appreciate the tireless efforts of our bloggers and "Ask the Expert" contributors.
My personal goal for 2007 is to have a portal for Acrobat Connect users and content localized for non-English speaking members.
Happy Birthday AcrobatUsers.com
(and Happy Valentine's Day to each of you)

January 29, 2007

PDF University 2007 in Miami Beach

The 2nd annual PDF University will be held in Miami Beach Feb 28 - Mar 3. I'll be there to present in the track PDF for Document Publishing. I will focus on what's new in Acrobat 8 as it relates to a business user.

To kick off this track, I'm hosting an Adobe User Group breakfast (full breakfast - not just danish) at the convention center @ 7:30 am on March 2nd. Registration and Room Location to follow. With the co-location of The Creative Suite Conference, I expect we'll get folks from the InDesign crowd as well.

As always, we'll give an update on what's happening at Adobe, answer lots of questions, and of course, raffle off some fun gifts.

January 28, 2007

PDF spec released!

I'm so excited about our announcement earlier today. In case you didn't see the Press Release, Adobe has offered up the PDF specification (version 1.7) to the International Standards Organization (ISO). AIIM will be the facilitator.

As a long time Acrobat and PDF user and evangelist, this news and decision by our executive team will ensure a long-lasting PDF community within government, education, and business organizations world-wide. It is clearly the next logical step for PDF as a standard. ISO has already ratified PDF/X and PDF/A, with PDF/E just around the corner.

Leonard Rosenthol, Technical Standards Evangelist at Adobe has prepared an excellent outline of the history of PDF as an open technology on his blog

We have an FAQ posted, but please feel free to comment here if you have questions about the announcement.

If you want to chat in person, I'm aware of the following events this week:
- Joel Geraci, who has taken over for me as Acrobat/PDF Technical Evangelist, is at the Lyra Symposium.
- Rick Borstein, the voice behind the Acrobat for Legal Professionals blog , is at LegalTech.
- I'll be at Smart Geometry Workshop & Conference in NYC.

January 24, 2007

ANNOUNCEMENT: NEW Update to Acrobat 3D

I’m happy to announce that we have just posted an update to Adobe Acrobat 3D. This free update includes several Dynamic Link Libraries (DLL) that provide support for more recent versions of CAD file formats for Adobe Acrobat 3D and the 3D Toolkit. The list of new and updated file formats can be found in the press release and at the download site. Most of the filters have been updated to include the latest versions of popular CAD packages.

And if you don't have Acrobat 3D and want to try it - please visit the trial download page. Note: after you install the trial you will need to add the patch mentioned above to ensure you have the updated filters. Also, if you want more information on Acrobat 3D you can visit the Acrobat 3D Corner on AcrobatUsers.com

January 23, 2007

Announcement: Acrobat Connect Professional Roadshow

I'm excited to let you know that Adobe has a multi-city (12) tour starting next week dedicated to educating attendees on Acrobat Connect Professional. The sessions are 9:00 - 12:00 (registration begins at 8:30 am).

I've been using Acrobat Connect Professional (formerly known as Macromedia Breeze) since the companies came together and I've found that as a world traveler, I love the fact that I can hold a meeting, show a demo, or just share my desktop from anywhere to anyone.

I encourage you to attend one of these events if you can - and if not, there are online seminars as an alternative.

And if you do attend - I would love to hear how your experience was. Did you learn something new? Do you think you'll use the technology?

November 2, 2006

Acrobat 8 is shipping!

October 30, 2006

Announcement: Experience the Power of Acrobat

Well... first day of the Acrobat in Action road show is tomorrow in Chicago. I'm here, watching the presenters prepare. This will be a great opportunity to see Acrobat 8 in action. The morning starts with a keynote by Tom Hale, the executive VP of my group at Adobe - Knowledge Worker Solutions, where the Acrobat & Connect family of products are produced.
After Tom's keynote, we'll see a 45-minute review of new functionality in Acrobat 8 to enable you to be more productive. Then we'll break up in to vertically-focused subject groups: Legal, Creative Professional/Marketing,
AEC/Manufacturing, General Business, and eLearning/Education.

After lunch, you have one of two options - attend the Acrobat Developer Workshop, hosted by Joel Geraci, our Acrobat/PDF Technical Evangelist, or attend a session on Adobe Creative Suite 2.3 - the latest update to the Creative Suite family, which includes Acrobat 8 Professional and Dreamweaver.

I encourage you to attend one of these events if possible. If you're not from Chicago - you can attend via Acrobat Connect, or we'll be having events in Toronto (Nov 14), Irvine, CA (Nov 17), San Francisco (Nov 30), and New York City (Dec 4). To learn more about the event and to register visit our website.

Acrobat Conference - Midwest

Next Monday - Wednesday (Nov 6-8), the leaders of our Nebraska Acrobat User Group will be hosting an
Acrobat Conference in Council Bluffs, IA (that's right across the state line from Omaha, NE).
Lots of great community experts will be there, including Ted Padova, author of Acrobat PDF Bible.
I've attached a map to show a 2-hour drive and a 4-hour drive to the event. I encourage you to attend either for the
1/2 day on Monday - or the full conference Tuesday-Wednesday.

September 28, 2006

3 new Acrobat User Groups under way

The Acrobat User Community continues to grow and grow. I'd like to announce we've added a Dallas, TX chapter - which will hold its first meeting October 5th; and the Denver, CO chapter, holding its first meeting 2nd week of October. Additionally, we'll have a Las Vegas chapter up and running before Adobe MAX. If you're at Adobe MAX, please stop by the Acrobat Users booth to learn more about the community and Acrobat 8.

September 18, 2006

Acrobat 8 in the UK

My first post on Acrobat 8 focused on our North American activities. I also want to point out there are activities going on around the world for users to get a closer look at the newest version. For our users in the UK - there is a very exciting tour starting October 17th in London (Regents Park) and moving to Birmingham, Leeds, Edinburgh, Bristol, and Manchester. This event will allow users to experience Acrobat 8 via a hands-on workshop.

I'll post more world-wide activities later in the day.

September 17, 2006

Acrobat 8 Announced!

Well... I'm sure you've heard by now... Adobe announced Acrobat 8 today. The Acrobat Family includes:

You might think - what is Acrobat Connect/Connect Professional? We're rebranding our Macromedia Breeze line of products. We have a brand new offering - Acrobat Connect - which is a personal meeting room, and Breeze Meeting is now Acrobat Connect Professional.

Most of the reason I've been very quiet this summer is a result of my world-wide tour to educate our Adobe sales teams on these products. 18 cities and 460 attendees later, I'm ready for a vacation!

However, back to today's announcement. So... where do you learn more about what's there?

For our Acrobat Developers... there are 6 live events, where our new PDF Technical Evangelist, Joel Geraci, will be running workshops on what's new and what's changed with Acrobat & PDF for our developer audience. The first one will be October 3rd in Washington DC - registration is via AcrobatUsers.com
The additional 5 cities are part of our North American tour.

And last but not least, I'll be hosting 3 live Acrobat Connect Professional meetings tomorrow (Tuesday, September 19th) to discuss Acrobat 8 with our user community. I'll have guest speakers from the PDF community - Ted Padova, Leonard Rosenthol, Duff Johnson, and Thom Parker - each discussing the new product offering. No registration required.

Well.. that's it for today... More tomorrow!

September 1, 2006

CORRECTION: Update to Acrobat 3D

Sorry, folks. The update that I announced on Aug 22 has been pulled back from the web for a quick fix. There is a small issue affecting the import performance of large Pro/ENGINEER assemblies. If you have already installed the update, it's fine to use - just wanted you to be aware of this issue. Thank you for your patience and I'll update you when the patch has been re-posted.

August 22, 2006

ANNOUNCEMENT: Update to Acrobat 3D

I’m happy to announce that we have just posted an update to Adobe Acrobat 3D. This free update includes several Dynamic Link Libraries (DLL) that provide support for more recent versions of CAD file formats for Adobe Acrobat 3D and the 3D Toolkit. I'll let you review the list of new and updated file formats at the update site, but needless to say, most of the filters have been updated to include the latest versions of popular CAD packages.

And if you don't have Acrobat 3D and want to try it - please visit the trial download page. Note: after you install the trial you will need to add the patch mentioned above to ensure you have the updated filters. Also, if you want more information on Acrobat 3D you can visit the Acrobat 3D Corner on AcrobatUsers.com

Oh, and one last thing - we recently posted a whitepaper published by Collaborative Product Development Associates (CPDA) which discusses how "Acrobat 3D (and Adobe Reader) for communication and collaboration of 3D product information will reshape the existing product development processes across the entire product lifecycle." (clearly not my words!)

April 1, 2006

Acrobat 3D Workshop

Acrobat 3D, introduced in January, is the newest member of the Acrobat family. If you're in North America and interested in taking a look at the product, please feel free to register for the tour starting next week.

February 14, 2006

AcrobatUsers.com is live!

In my September 20, 2005 blog I mentioned the announcement of the Acrobat User Community Initiative which would be underway soon. As of today, the website (AcrobatUsers.com) is live, but still under construction. I ask you to take a look - and let me know what you like, don't like, and what is missing (other than blogs and forums - they're coming...)

February 11, 2006

Acrobat Conference 2006 in Brazil

The date for the 3rd annual Acrobat Conference in São Paulo, Brazil is set - June 8th, 2006. Details to come, but you may want to bookmark http://www.acrobatconference.com.br if you're interested in details, and attending.

February 8, 2006

A whole team of Acrobat ACEs

What’s an Adobe ACE? It is someone that has taken the Adobe Certification Exam for a specific product. Our Adobe Certified Instructors are all required to take this test, but what about other folks? Developers? Users?
I’ve just found out that one of our partners, EBridge Solutions, based in Nodia, India, had their entire Acrobat & Reader integration team certified on Acrobat. I've attached a
picture of the team with their ACE certificates. Congratulations!

ACE certification is required only for training instructors, but the team at EBridge wanted to have this certification under their belt to emphasize their commitment to Acrobat and PDF technology. If you have a team of Acrobat ACEs - let me know.