PDF Developer Junkie

Acrobat.com Updated

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 12:45:39 -0800

If you haven't logged into your Acrobat.com account in a few days you're in for a real treat. The user interface has been through a major overhaul so all the various applications work far more smoothly. Here's a brief list of the major improvements.

Single file organization system with Collections (think Playlists)
All applications are in the same interface
Updates to each core service
New architecture for improved performance and scalability
35 customers suggested feature improvements from ideas.acrobat.com

So - Why talk about Acrobat.com in my developer blog? Keep reading...

Create your own Acrobat tutorial or tip

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:13:36 -0800

JoAnn Davis recently posted an article on the Acrobat Docs blog that might be of interest to Acrobat gurus.

Many people who use Acrobat have a lot of experience and expertise to share. If you are one of those people, you might be interested in creating a tutorial or tip using the new Adobe Community Publishing System. This new AIR application lets anyone with an Adobe ID publish content on Adobe products and technology directly to Adobe.com.

Continue Reading "Create your own Acrobat tutorial or tip"

Fonts

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 12:43:59 -0800

Normally I wouldn't post something like this but being an Adobe employee, fonts are a passion of mine. "To The Best of Our Knowledge" from Wisconsin Public Radio is one of my favorite podcasts and this week they did an episode all about fonts. Even if you're not a font geek like me you'll find this program interesting and funny.

MAX 2009 Sessions for Acrobat Now Posted on Adobe TV

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 21:24:37 -0800

If you were not able to make it to MAX 2009 this year or were at MAX and missed some of the Acrobat sessions, here's your chance to catch up. The Acrobat specific presentations have been posted to Adobe TV. The following is a list of the ones that I organized and a few others that I highly recommend watching.

Ian Campbell's Presentation from MAX 2009

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 11:17:36 -0800

Several people asked me for a copy of Ian's presentation from MAX 2009. The session has been recorded but not posted yet. However, Ali Hanyaloglu recorded a similar presentation for AcrobatUsers.com. The best part is, even though it's not Ian speaking, you still get to hear the presentation in a British accent.

Leonard Rosenthol's Presentation from MAX 2009

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 15:11:09 -0800

Several people asked me for a copy of Leonard's presentation from MAX 2009. The session has been recorded but not posted yet so for now, you can look at the PDF file.

MAX Online

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 17:40:37 -0800

Adobe MAX 2009 starts this weekend and we want to make sure that everyone can participant in this year’s event. Check out MAX Online -- where people from anywhere in the world can join in the excitement of MAX.

Download the MAX Companion Application

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 09:37:02 -0800

Enhance your conference experience with the MAX Companion. MAX Companion is a cross-platform, multiscreen social application designed to help you navigate the conference and communicate with other attendees in real time via Twitter. Built with the Adobe® Flash® Platform, MAX Companion is available in two forms, as a desktop download and on a large interactive multitouch screen.

Turning on trace() for the Flash Player in Acrobat 9

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 19:50:09 -0800

If you've started to work with the new Acrobat ActionScript API for creating custom PDF Portfolio navigators you'll quickly come to a point where you may want to do some debugging. Unfortunately, the current Acrobat 9 application doesn't provide a true debugging environment. However, you can see errors and get a pretty good understanding of what's going on by simply outputting some trace() statements. Error reporting and trace() is off by default but you can turn it on by adding the following settings to the Windows registry:

The PDF Central Conference

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 09:45:02 -0800

One of my co-Evangelists, Ali Hanyaloglu, will be presenting at the Acrobat and PDF Central Conference happening in Minneapolis September 22-24. The conference features an all-star cast from Adobe and the Acrobat community. Ali, Lisa Croft and Paul Gilbertson from Adobe and PDF gurus like Ted Padova, Duff Johnson, Angie Okamoto, Bob Connolly and Thom Parker will be there to present and meet with Acrobat users like yourselves.

Get the MAX 2009 Widget

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 15:53:33 -0800

We recently released the MAX widget. The widget was created with Photoshop and Flex Builder 3 (no Flash authoring involved).

Joel's PDF Portfolio Utilities Updated

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 10:17:26 -0800

I recently updated "Joel's PDF Portfolio Utilities" to include the ability to combine multiple portfolios into one.

Combine All Open PDF Portfolios:
This script will look at all of the open PDF files to see which are PDF Portfolios meaning the collection object returns a value. Then, it will combine all the open PDF Portfolios into a single new PDF Portfolio that contains all the files and metadata from the sources. This version will not maintain folder structure so it's best to use on PDF Portfolios that do not contain folders. Creating a new PDF Portfolio through app.newCollection() is a privileged function so you'll need to wrap it in a trustedFunction to make it work, the code snippet below shows how.

Acrobat 9.1 SDK Update Released

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:42:27 -0800

The Navigator SDK for PDF Portfolio Layouts is finally out of beta and is available for download. Samples, updated documentation and other resources are available in the Acrobat 9.1 SDK August 2009 update. You can get it by following the link below.

World's Best Presentation Contest

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:27:40 -0800

One of the ways that I’ve been using PDF Portfolios in my own work is to combine recordings of my presentations with all of the supplementary documentation that I refer to throughout the presentation into a single PDF file. Take a look at my Enterprise Deployment Portfolio as an example.

MAX 2009 Speaker Profiles: Ian Campbell

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 08:58:08 -0800

Ian Campbell: ICCS
Ian has been consulting and training on Acrobat for over 10 years now, and is an Adobe Certified Expert living in London, England. He regularly trains companies and public bodies throughout the United Kingdom and Europe in a number of Adobe products, but counts Acrobat as his all-time favorite. As part of his work for Adobe Systems Europe he has devised and presented Acrobat launch tours, helped co-ordinate partner websites, written the occasional publication - and delivered more eSeminars via Connect Pro than he can remember.