I just love the internet way back machine.....
10 years ago, this is how the Acrobat page looked.....
http://web.archive.org/web/20030602212156/www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/main.html
I think I still have those trousers somewhere.....
No post last week, sorry about that, no great excuse, just very busy. We managed an Acrobat call blitz day which went very well, thanks in no small part to our new Marketing manager for Acrobat.
As a result of the call blitz I'm running a few online eSeminars this week, if you want to find out a little more and perhaps register too, here's the url you need....
http://www.adobe.com/uk/special/acrobatsolutions/index.html
just take a look and hit the "Register" button. The eseminars are running on Tuesday and Thursday and I'll be looking at....
Forrester Consulting, on behalf of Adobe, conducted independent, online surveys of 700 U.S.-based respondents and 3,000 European-based participants to understand more about collaborative work within their respective geographies. The studies, completed in September 2009 and December 2008, respectively, involved knowledge workers with full-time employment who have office productivity software tools, an Internet-connected computer and work in organizations of various sizes.
The surveys found that while collaboration is pervasive across both regions, nearly 70 percent of knowledge workers believe improvements are needed, with top benefits sought including the speed and efficiency of collaboration and an associated reduction of paperwork (each approximately two-thirds). On this and many key findings, workers in the United States and Europe found strong common ground.
Continue reading "European workers not satisfied w/ traditional collab methods " »
Sooooo, I've been saying this in security eSeminars and meetings for ages now.... Watermarks are a really useful tool in helping to keep your documents and other contenet secure.
Since most document loss is accidental... (I send you a document and you think the content is so great you share it with some who actually shouldn't really have access) ... If you watermark documents with the appropriate phrase, they're less likely to be accidentaly shared. It's easy to imagine how a large "Company Confidential" watermark might stop someone from inadvertently sharing a document with partners or customers.
The best bit? It's really easy to do, take a look here.....
....see I told you!
What a busy weekend it was... first the bad...
Sport!
Gloucester somehow are conspiring to become the most awful team in the Guinnes Premiership losing quite pathetically to a resurgent Wasps. Two tries from Mark Van Gisbergen and one each from Dominic Waldouck and Serge Betsen helped Wasps seal a well deserved bonus-point win at Kingsholm.
So Saturday was poor, then on Sunday Manchester United were beaten 0-2 at Anfield by Liverpool who ended their worst sequence of results since 1987. It has to be said, we were.... deservedly beaten at Anfield, crikey that was hard to say.
....and now the good
Sport!
Watford beat Sheffield Midweek 4-1 on Friday night, a match we all thoroughly enjoyed in the Rookery.
Saturday's final NCT class has left me feeling like I might not be completely all at sea when our first born son comes along... By the way, this is what he's currently looking like...
The Nursery is coming along a treat too, 3 coats of paint in, 2 to go!
Today I'll be on a training course to improve my communcation and presentation skills, I'm hoping that future Blog posts will make more sense. I'm also hoping that it will help me create some new innovative presentations on aspects of Acrobat. You know how it is, you can often describe a subtle nuance of your work in coversation but are unable to put it down in a more formal way, let's hope todays training might help that.
TTFN
Steve
LONDON, Oct. 5 (UPI) -- A British government document advising officials on how to keep documents from leaking to the Internet has been published -- on the Internet.
The 2,400 page Defense Manual of Security, authored by the Ministry of Defense to help high-ranking military and defense officials keep documents safe from leaks, was published on Wikileaks, a Web site designed for anonymous leaks of documents from governments and other organizations, The Daily Telegraph reported Monday.
"Leaks usually take the form of reports in the public media which appear to involve the unauthorized disclosure of official information (whether protectively marked or not) that causes political harm or embarrassment to either the U.K. Government or the Department concerned," the document reads in its "Leaks of Official Information" section.
"The threat (of leakage) is less likely to arise from positive acts of counter-espionage, than from leakage of information through disaffected members of staff, or as a result of the attentions of an investigative journalist, or simply by accident or carelessness," it reads.
Comment from Steve:
So to me, this is another great example of putting security inside your document, just like we can do with Acrobat and PDF!
Adobe Acrobat 9.2 Pro and Standard Update - Multiple Languages
The Adobe® Acrobat® 9.2 Pro and Standard update addresses a number of customer workflow issues and critical security vulnerabilities while providing more overall stability.
For more information regarding issues addressed in this release, see the Release Notes.
The update can be applied to version 9.1.3 of Adobe Acrobat Pro and Standard.
This is a multilingual update for Brazilian Portuguese, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Spanish, Swedish, Bulgarian, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Croatian, Czech, Estonian, Hungarian, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Turkish, and Ukrainian.
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=4561
Adobe Acrobat 9.2 Pro Extended Update - Multiple Languages
The Adobe® Acrobat® 9.2 Pro Extended update addresses critical security vulnerabilities while providing more overall stability.
For more information regarding issues addressed in this release, see the Release Notes.
The update can be applied to version 9.1.3 of Adobe Acrobat Pro Extended.
This is a multilingual update for Brazilian Portuguese, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish.
.....and here's the link for the download
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=4559
My colleague Marcus has been at IFRA recently and has been updating us via his excellent blog. Definitely worth a read if you have a creative side and/or like Lego.
He did point out the ad campaign that our friends in Russia had run for Acrobat 9 Pro earlier this year. In the best traditions of Russian animation, that ads are whimsical, funny, cute have excellent timing but most of all, I'm not quite sure how they relate to Acrobat!
"The Acrobat Brothers".... you can see them for yourself here
So, I'm 2 days late (busy etc.) but on Oct 13th a Security Bulletin has been posted in regards to the second quarterly security update for Adobe Reader and Acrobat. The update addresses critical security issues in the products; Adobe recommends that users apply the update for their product installations. Please note that with support for Adobe Reader 7.X and Acrobat 7.X ending in December 2009, this is the last scheduled update planned for Adobe Reader 7.X and Acrobat 7.X.
The Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.2 and 8.1.7 updates will include a new update and deployment tool, initially shipping in a passive, beta state, which will be functional for Acrobat and Adobe Reader customers in the near future, as well as two new changes in security user interface and control.
More information on this is available here.
Posted from the Adobe Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) site, late last week.....
Adobe is aware of reports of a critical vulnerability in Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.1.3 and earlier (CVE-2009-3459) on Windows, Macintosh and UNIX. There are reports that this issue is being exploited in the wild in limited targeted attacks; the exploit targets Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.1.3 on Windows.
Adobe plans to resolve this issue as part of the upcoming Adobe Reader and Acrobat quarterly security update, scheduled for release on October 13. Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.1.3 customers with DEP enabled on Windows Vista will be protected from this exploit. Disabling JavaScript also mitigates against this specific exploit, although a variant that does not rely on JavaScript could be possible. In the meantime, Adobe is also in contact with Antivirus and Security vendors regarding the issue and recommends users keep their anti-virus definitions up to date.
We wish to thank Chia-Ching Fang and the Information and Communication Security Technology Center for their help with reporting and investigating this issue (CVE-2009-3459).
We will continue to provide updates on this issue via the Security Advisory section of the Adobe web site, as well as the Adobe PSIRT blog.
Check out the full Blog here
Adobe MAX has been awesome as always, here are a couple of links to some Air action....
"Preview - Desktop Integration in Adobe AIR 2"
Adobe AIR Senior Engineering Manager Arno Gourdol highlights the functionality of storage volume mount notifications and document launching in the next version of Adobe AIR 2.
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/adc-presents/preview-desktop-integration-in-adobe-air-2/
"Preview - Command Line Integration in Adobe AIR 2"
Senior Computer Scientist Brent Rosenquist highlights CLI in the next version of Adobe AIR 2. Learn to create native process objects and handle the standard output data they produce.
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/adc-presents/preview-command-line-integration-in-adobe-air-2/
I enjoyed a great Acrobat session yesterday with an existing customer. We covered most aspects of the use of Acrobat, but one area that hit a load of peoples hotbuttons was commenting and specifically merging from multiple users.
Well, there's a great video here
I seem to be working with cloud computing again. There's been a bit of a pause but I've also noticed that cloud computing has hit the peak of the Gartner hype curve.... see attached...
But, although cloud computing might be about to enter thr "trough of disillusionment", as the next image shows....
It does look like Cloud Computing could be here to stay as a major impacting technology. In all the comparisons I've seen recently, www.acrobat.com shows up pretty well so I'll let you know more on where it's going as soon as I'm able to....
In the meantime, checkout www.acrobat.com because it's a great set of online services -- file sharing and storage, a PDF converter, an online word processor, and web conferencing -- you can use to create and share documents, communicate in real time, and simplify working with others.
Thanks
Steve
Hiya,
I'm still running loads and loads of webinars for customers and new prospects. Once of the things that is still grabbing attention with the people I meet is the ability to create and share an ePortfolio.
the Adobe Acrobat User Community have ePortfolios as their topic of the month and I heartily (never thought I'd use that word in a blog) reccomend a visit to the site...
It's a great site that I try to view every few days. It has great content as well as some of the best Acrobatr minds out there.
In fact, later in October, the 21st to be precise, Lori DeFurio will be running an eSeminar to share with you how easy it is to organize content from a variety of sources--including documents, email, images, spreadsheets, and web pages--in a single searchable PDF Portfolio, compressed for easy distribution.
She will show you how to use professional designed templates that can be branded with your company logo and colors. Quickly integrate content, define navigation and add polish to communicate clearly and effectively. Apply permissions and passwords to help protect sensitive information. Share information with anyone using free Adobe Reader software.
here's the topic link for you... http://www.acrobatusers.com/monthly_topic/2009/10
Enjoy!
Hi there, the weeks keep on rolling by,
I just thought I would share some news that's exciting for us at Adobe,--- John Warnock and Chuck Geschke (Our founders) have been awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. The medal will be awarded by President Obama in a White House ceremony on Oct. 7, 2009.
Links to press releases and National Medal of Honor website -
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/President-Honors-Nations-Top-Scientists-and-Innovators/
CNET publishes a nice story about a reporter's effort to go paperless in his personal life. The article includes a section on PDF, and Acrobat and Adobe Reader are discussed. Adobe's John B. Harris is quoted and states, "We're very keen on the idea of banks, institutions, and utilities moving back to a more active delivery of a statement."
Read the full story here
How on earth did I go for four weeks without posting even though I haven't been on hols or anything? What have I been doing for 20 days....
25 Customer meetings, all over the country (Swansea, Norfolk, Manchester, London, Farnborough amongst others), 4 full days with our channel partners, 2 days at The V-festival, one wedding and a 3rd birthday party..... busy!
In other news, I hear today that Dr. John Warnock and Dr. Charles (Chuck) Geschke, our co-founders at Adobe, have been honoured with the global Ipex 2010 'Champions in Print' awards.
So, I arrived back from holiday yesterday evening to face my car in the airport carpark, not working.. nice! Vehicle recovery costs plus the repair of whatever has gone wrong, I'll need one of those junk "EuroLottery win" emails to be true for a change.
Anyway, I'm back in harness and wading through the emails, I'll pop in an update to let you know what's new as soon as I know!
With so many customer visits and eSeminars recently, I am noticing some trends in terms of what's high on people's agendas. Two ears, one mouth, used in that ratio have helped....
Security keeps popping up as a topic for discussion and it's one that we enjoy having since we can talk about document security from a reasonably firm basis. This has been enhanced by the latest news on how we are trying to increase trust in digital signatures.......
"Over the years, Adobe has made electronic documents and workflows easier, more efficient, and more secure. With one of the leading implementations of electronic signatures on the market, Adobe products allow you to go the last mile by eliminating the need to print a document out just to sign it. At the same time, we've also been busy behind the scenes working on ways to better deliver trust in those electronic and digital signatures so users can rely fully on these new workflows. Today, we're announcing the launch of our latest trust effort, the Adobe Approved Trust List...available now.
Read the full article here.....
http://blogs.adobe.com/security/2009/07/casting_a_wider_trust_net_anno.html
Again, we're talking about those things that have surfaced in recent meetings and eSeminars. Shared reviews still get people interested, the idea that everyone can start launching comments on a document at the same time is quite novel. It is also quite enjoyable to watch your document get commented on in real time as a load of colleagues start picking your work to bits. I've even seen virtual arguements start as people see each others comments and react, ahhh living my ife vicariously!
So a quick reminder on how to do a shared review for you.....
Continue reading "Shared reviews still look interesting - you be the judge" »
Hiya,
as I mentioned recently, in recent meetings with existing Acrobat users, I've been answering quite a few questions regarding accessibility. My initial answer has always been that PDF is the best place to start to create accessible documents, but why is that? Well PDF files have certain characteristics that can make them more accessible.......
Well, just returned from a long weekend away in Woolacombe (see post from March)....
Spent Monday morning talking surfing over breakfast with a 79 year old woman, sh still surfs most weeks! Man do I feel like an underachiever!
I've been meeting and talking with some UK Local Authorities this week and have been asked a lot about Accessibility in PDF files. (By the way, have I been piling up the miles or what?)
For me accessibility really starts with Tagging, and as luck would have it, I've just seen a great article about defining PDF accessibility from WebAIM and you can read it here...
I just wanted to say what an enjoyable day we had at the T20 World Cup final at Lords. We were seated amongst a large number of Pakistan fans and although they didn't make as much noise as the Indian fans last week, there was some great banter and it was backed up by an excellent game of T20. Lords looked splendid as usual too!
Hi, good Monday morning to ya. I was asked a few weeks ago about the history of Acrobat and to be honest, I rambled a bit and then moved on. I've since been sent a great list of release dates for the various Acrobat versions, interesting reading for the oldies amongst us....
Hello, bonjour, ciao!
It's been an interesting few weeks in British politics, but whatever the rights and wrongs of the government’s decision to ‘redact’ or black out the details of MPs expenses online, it once again highlights the ongoing need for organisations to publish original documents electronically without exposing sensitive information.
Continue reading "MP's... Expenses..... Redaction.... Acrobat relevance!!" »
So, after a year of being a 'beta site' we've take a big step towards realizing our vision of a new way to work on Acrobat.com.
We have launched Acrobat.com Premium subscriptions for more intensive business use. And we give a look into the future of Acrobat.com for the coming year, starting with the unveiling of our spreadsheet product, Acrobat.com Tables, on our Labs website. Lots of news, and I'm sorry I didn't mention it at the time but two weeks ago we released Acrobat.com Presentations.... go find them at http://labs.acrobat.com/
I was talking to a few colleagues about the whats and whys of security in Acrobat. As you might know, I like to have a flow or story in my mind when talking about business and/or Acrobat. So, for what it’s worth, here’s my short version of the Security story…
• Security is becoming a bigger issue for our customers, well, for everyone with high value information
• The penalties for losing data are higher than ever
• So companies shave spent a lot on perimeter security (logins to multiple systems etc)
• BUT this misses all that data that gets shared in an ad-hoc, uncontrolled way from the desktop
• So Acrobat can help in this area
• People trust PDF as a secure format so it’s the best place to start
Even if just making a PDF it’s not as secure as people expect
• We can add a whole range of security features to a PDF
Protecting the content with redaction and watermarks, checking for metadata
Protecting the wrapper with encryption, passwords and digital certificates
• We can even link into LiveCycle Rights management services
• But best of all, it’s EASY to use
• Promoting high user uptake and actually being beneficial
Just my way of putting it anyway........
BTW: Ronaldo sold for £80Million, great business, bring on Benzema!
Good morning there! The first quarterly security update has been posted for Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader 7, 8 and 9 (specifically, 9.1.2, 8.1.6 and 7.1.3). The ASSET security bulletin, with links to download the patches, has been posted here...
The ASSET security bulletin, with links to download the patches, has been posted to
http://www.adobe.com/support/security/bulletins/apsb09-07.html
Going forward, the ASSET security blog should be a really useful and proactive one.
Well,
I've not been able to log onto my blog for a while.... Add this to a short holiday and all of a sudden my blogging has been replaced by some Twittering..... That's like snacking at a buffet, tasty, but no replacement for a proper meal.
Everything seems to be back in order now, so I shall resume blogging, hurrah or bother! depending on your point of view.
I'm currently averaging 2 customer meetings per day, so as you can imagine time is short but I'll see what I can do.
Flavour of the month: Desktop Document Security
Flavour of the day: Tuna and Sweetcorn in a Pitta
TTFN
Steve
Yesterday, the Adobe Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) posted a Security Bulletin and provided Adobe Reader and Acrobat patches to our Product Update area. This update resolves the vulnerabilities from Security Advisory APSA09-02. Adobe is not currently aware of any exploits in the wild for these issues.
The Product update area can be found here....
http://www.adobe.com/downloads/updates/
Here's your page for Windows downloads....
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=10&platform=Windows
And here's the page for Mac downloads....
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=10&platform=Macintosh
Nice piece of news to top off my weekend after a good solid win for my beloved United in the Manchester derby (just 4 more points needed for the Premiership title).
Adobe Acrobat and www.Acrobat.com both won Awards at this years Codies..
Best Multi-Media Solution
Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended, Adobe Systems, Inc.
Best Communication Solution
Adobe Acrobat.com, Adobe Systems, Inc.
The CODiE Awards, originally called the Excellence in Software Awards, were established in 1986 by the Software Publishers Association (SPA), now the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), so that pioneers of the then-nascent software industry could evaluate and honor each other’s work. Since then, the CODiE Awards program has carried out the same purpose – to showcase the software and information industry’s finest products and services and to honor excellence in corporate achievement and philanthropic efforts.
The CODiE Awards hold the distinction of being the industry’s only peer-reviewed awards program, which provides member companies with a unique opportunity to earn praise from their competitors. Now in its twenty-fourth year, the CODiE Awards program has raised the standard for excellence and serves as prestigious representation of outstanding achievement and vision in the software and information industry..... So now you know!
yes yes yes, I know I normally shy away from talking about eForms in Acrobat and Adobe Reader, it's one of those in jokes that my colleagues love to throw in my direction..... but a quick tip nonetheless
You possibly didn't know this but, Acrobat and Adobe Reader have a preference for allowing auto-complete of form fields.
All you have to do is just select Edit > Preferences > Forms and then you can select Off, Basic, or Advanced. Once you've select Basic or Advanced, then Acrobat will remember what you've input so that you'll have those words, numbers, etc. available in subsequent fields.
There is one exception however -- if the form was created with Adobe LiveCycle Designer, *and* is a dynamic form -- auto-complete will work, but you'll have to double-click to get the auto-complete drop-down with all your saved values.
So there you go, makeing forms easier to fill out in the Adobe Reader or Acrobat.... next up for me, a seminar for the UK Ministry of Defence.... I could tell you more, but then I'd have to kill you!
TTFN
A Security Advisory has been posted in regards to the Adobe Reader vulnerability last mentioned in the Adobe PSIRT blog on April 28 (“Update to Adobe Reader Issue”, CVE-2009-1492).
We are in the process of fixing the issue, and expect to make available product updates for the relevant supported Adobe Reader and Acrobat versions and platforms by May 12th, 2009. Adobe plans to make available Windows updates for Adobe Reader versions 9.X, 8.X, and 7.X and Acrobat versions 9.X, 8.X, and 7.X, Macintosh updates for Adobe Reader versions 9.X and 8.X and Acrobat versions 9.X and 8.X, as well as Adobe Reader for Unix versions 9.X and 8.X.
Sorry about the recent lack of posts, I've been trying out Twitter and could do with a way for it to hit this blog too.
I've been asked about this in a few emails and comments so here's an update on the Adobe Reader vulnerability first discussed on the Adobe PSIRT blog on April 27 (“Potential Adobe Reader Issue”). All currently supported shipping versions of Adobe Reader and Acrobat (Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.1, 8.1.4, and 7.1.1 and earlier versions) are vulnerable to this issue. Adobe plans to provide updates for all supported versions for all platforms (Windows, Macintosh and Unix) to resolve this issue. We are working on a development schedule for these updates and will post a timeline as soon as possible. We are currently not aware of any reports of exploits in the wild for this issue. To mitigate the issue disable JavaScript in Adobe Reader and Acrobat using the following instructions below:
1. Launch Acrobat or Adobe Reader.
2. Select Edit>Preferences
3. Select the JavaScript Category
4. Uncheck the ‘Enable Acrobat JavaScript’ option
5. Click OK
In addition, Adobe is in contact with Antivirus and Security vendors on this issue in order to ensure the security of our mutual customers.
Adobe is also currently investigating the issue posted on SecurityFocus as BID 34740.
We will continue to provide updates on these issues via the Security Advisory section of the Adobe web site, you can find that here... http://www.adobe.com/support/security
So, recently, a nice chap over at eWeek called Larry Seltzer published a comparison between Adobe Reader 9 and some PDF viewer alternatives.
Take a look for yourself here
This came as a plesant surprise since it comes after he had previously suggested that companies should consider removing Adobe Reader due to the recent security vulnerabilities.
“After testing was completed, I'm not so anxious to dump Adobe, as all of the programs tested provided reason for concern. Perhaps responsibly managing the vulnerabilities in Adobe products is the best solution.”
In the article, Larry Seltzer could have expanded the range and type of PDF documents he used, and doesn’t discuss printing results much, if at all, but I still congratulate him for keeping an open mind.
http://twitter.com/Sparters
That'll be me then.......
Well, I expect that will draw some readers in.... Acrobat on Twitter whatever next?!?
Actually, it's just a great Twitter account/feed that includes short tips from the Acrobat product team to help you use Adobe Acrobat. You can access it here...
Of course, a Blog is far too wordy and boring to read, so we should all be tweeting away on Twitter, in fact, I've just opened an account, I'll have a tinker and see what happens.
I just wanted to say, I'm back in the office now, so those spam blog commenters can feel free to hit me again! Some thoughts on Acrobat once I've got my head back into work mode and cleared the "few" emails that have arrived whilst I was away in Italy... Yup, I've been painting the apartment again, this time we actually stayed a night!... pics to follow I'm sure :-)
Steve
I'm off for a week so won't be posting, I'm not sure why I'm telling you this, since I haven't installed any counters for this Blog, I'm blissfully unaware of the actual numbers of people who read this. Springtech has been really valuable and I'm looking forwards to some more tinkering with Acrobat 9 in a little over a week.
Until then...
This morning I jumped into the Sessions refreshed after a good nights sleep and an early morning Blog post. Today we have been looking at Acrobat pro Extended and specifically the use of the 3D engine, this afternoon we will be looking at the Adobe 3D Reviewer in some more detail.....
The Adobe 3D Reviewer is a separate application that is installed with Acrobat Pro Extended. You can use Adobe 3D Reviewer to work with CAD files in many ways:
* Merge CAD files.
* Compare and measure exact geometry.
* Calculate bounding box and physical properties.
* Move and delete parts.
* Add animations.
* Create exploded views and bills of material.
* Export to neutral formats and raster and vector 2D files.
To edit a 3D model in an open PDF, right-click the 3D model and choose Edit In 3D Reviewer. (If you don’t see Edit In 3D Reviewer in the menu, right-click the 3D model and choose Enable Content first. Also, if the file is protected, you cannot edit it.)
This much I know already, and have used the 3D reviewer in a few meetings, but I'm hoping to learn mothe this afternoon!... The image above? That's what I hope to be my kitchen in our little holiday home.
TTFN
Crikey, the late morning and afternoon went by like a flash, so sorry that I didn't write an update.
Well, the afternoon looked at Acrobat in comparison to some of the other PDF products out there and we then moved on to talk about the various security features available in Acrobat.
It was a really useful session overall and I guess I just have one comment to put here regarding some of the other PDF products out there. We looked at various aspects of how these other systems created PDF and the quality of the finished article. Can I just say how genuinely stunned I was at the quite awful job some of these products did, I'll just pick on one element... Tagging!
PDF files can contain many things. At a minimum, a PDF contains the text, graphics, bookmarks, links and other elements of content that go to make up an electronic document.
In addition to content, PDF files may also include "structure". Structure is the term for a set of instructions that define the logic that binds the content together - the correct reading order, for example, the laguage being used in the document, and the presence and meaning of significant elements such as figures, lists, tables, and so on.
Tagging is a vital part of creating a PDF that will be genuinely useful for business, publishing, accessibility and well, just about everything.
Acrobat has a large number of tag types, over 30 I think. and these types recognise specific parts and elements of a document and will tag them accordingly so that the document structure is recorded and can be used by other systems. The tagging gets broken down into block elements.. Block-level elements are page elements that consist of text laid out in paragraph-like forms. Block-level elements are part of a document’s logical structure. Such elements are further classified as
Container elements
Heading and paragraph elements
Label and list elements
Special text elements
Table elements
Inline-level elements
Special inline-level elements
So, we have a way of expressing all of a documents constituent elements to either Acrobat itself or any other system.
I compared this to what I saw some other tools produce where every element was just called a Paragraph or worse, didn't even correctly recognise any structure within the document. Well I was really surprised, and not in a good way.
Put it this way, if you have any interest in Accessibility, Document Structure, I'd seriously ask questions about what's happening under the bonnet if you're looking at a non Adobe PDF tool.
...erm.... rant over :-)
More later this morning as Day 2 Commences!
Just a little snippet of something added to Acrobat and Reader 9.1.
We have a feature under the "Sign" main menu options called "Apply Ink Signature". This takes you directly to the pencil tool and will allow anyone using a tablet PC, PC with a separate Tablet, or any other tablet type device to capture a handwritten signature directly onto the Acrobat PDF page.
A really nice easy way to sign a document!!
....not that I'm surprised, but it's working well with around 150 delegates online from locations as diverse as Ottawa, London, Rome, Paris, Hamburg, Madrid etc. etc. etc. Well done us!
Well, I've arrived at my online destination in plenty of time for the start of our virtual Springtech conference. As it turns out, we have collected most if not all of the UK Adobe technical talent in a single room to join the conference. and what a collection of humanity it is.... I'll leave you to imagine what a room full of technical talent looks like!
Yikes!
I've been speaking with a few organisations looking at widespread deployment of Acrobat (wise people indeed, even in these tough times). It would seem that one of our better kept secrets is the existence of the Acrobat customisation wizard....
The Customization Wizard is a free downloadable utility designed to help the IT department take greater control of enterprise-wide deployments of Acrobat 9 and Reader 9. It has been available since last autumn on adobe.com. The wizard lets IT administrators customise the Acrobat installer and many application features prior to deployment and provides a simpler and more intuitive graphical interface to the Windows Installer for Acrobat.
We have created a datasheet on adobe.com to learn how the Customisation Wizard which should save you time and give you more control on your enterprise installs. You can download the Customisation Wizard here.
Oh yes, and the datasheet is here!
And in the now traditional "Other news"
United lost, Gloucester lost, Watford lost, England Won! Not the best sporting weekend of my life, still it was made all the more enjoyable by visiting my little neice who seems to have cuteness all sewn up :-)
Later this week, I'll be attending our internal SpringTech seminar event. It's 2 days of tech sharing amongst the European Adobe community. This year for the first time, the event will virtual with all the presentation streams being delivered using Adobe Connect Pro so we will not be descending en masse on a European city. As you can imagine, the city mayors of Europe are breathing a collective sigh of relief. Having so many attractive and intelligent people in one place can cause quite a disturbance and at least their police will not be called upon for any crowd/paparazzi control duties! We're a good looking bunch!!
I'll try to blog towards the end of this week and let you know how things go!
What a week, it's Friday already! As you know I try to use Connect as often as possible, sometimes though, it just helps to be there. Last week, I spent a day at a seminar for Pugh Computers. Pugh tend to specialise in the Education/Charity/Student sectors and we ran a joint seminar on Acrobat and Adobe CS4.
My colleague and all round publishing expert, Marcus, ran the CS4 session first and my goodness but there's some eye candy in the demos. Spontaneous oooh's and ahhhhs abounded as he ran through working in Photoshop with 3D models, creating video content, repurposing content for the web and on and on!. Great, "next up, Steve to show you PDF Forms" well, that's our standard in-joke anyway.
I ran my more Creative flavour of an Acrobat seminar and to be honest, thanks to the banter we managed to create between myself and the 60 or so delegates, we all had a good time! Acrobat finally has some pretty good eye candy of its own in demo terms, Flash content, ePortfolios, working with video and 3D models... People even found eForms interesting! Apologies to the delegate whose business card I have misplaced, I'll try to work out a way to get in contact regarding an on-site seminar.
As a contrast to that single event for 50 people, I also ran 6 eSeminars last week for one of our resellers. These enabled me to get around all of their customer facing staff in a fraction of the time that it would take with me driving around the country to their various offices.... Thanks Acrobat Connect Pro!
This week was also punctuated by a trip to manchester for an event with DABS, this time a virtualisation seminar, so I had the opportunity to talk about deployment in a virtual environment. The event was held at Old Trafford so I'll not apologise for including a pic from the event....... :-)
Nice view, not too shabby.
Finally a quick thanks for those people who emailed me recently after I asked for info on their use of MS project, cool, more than 3 people read this blog!
As the title says, I'll be posting some Acromobat (deliberate typo) stuff in a short while (busy last week and this!)
But first, I enjoyed a "perfect storm" of a great weekend and feel so good I just thought I should make a short post. First of all, we head down to Devon, staying at my best friends place, the weather is pretty near perfect for late Feb/early March and we are treated to gorgeous scenery like this...
So we ate some lovely local seafood, went for long walks along the sands, gosh, I'm welling up as I type... but that's no perfect storm. So, to add to the great weekend, first of all Gloucester contrived to beat Bath 36-27 in the local derby to extend their lead at the top of the table (Guinness Rugby Union Premiership, if you've not been reading recently)
Here's James Simpson-Daniel doing his stuff for the Cherry and Whites!
Then on Sunday afternoon I watched Manchester United win a penalty shootout to win the Carling Cup at Wembley (Home of football) against a Tottenham team that excelled on the day. Here's Johnny and Rio with the trophy...
Then to top the whole weekend off, we were treated to a simply beautiful sunset just before we left devon to drive home on Sunday night....
Faye and I must have sat for around 30 minutes just watching the sun go down, perfect! Now, let's see if I can top that in 2009, or even 2010!
Yup,
I've been painting and for those who've been whining that I only include 'nice' pics of myself, here's what I looked like... it isn't pretty....
Told you!
Before we start, I know I'm a week late on this but I've been out an about a bit... (see the entry below!)
Anyways, Recently the Associated Press was able to uncover some of the confidential details of the settlement between Facebook and ConnectU. They were able to do this because whoever “redacted” the confidential information contained in the settlement document, did not actually redact the information. Instead of properly redacting information from the document, the person simply put white boxes over the sensitive and therefore “redacted” information.
Thanks to this oversight, and I quote here..... “The Associated Press was able to read the blacked-out portions by copying from an electronic version of the document and pasting the results into another document.”
I'm sure I've bored you with this stuff before but for those at the back who may not have heard.. there are great redaction tools built into Adobe Acrobat 8.0 and 9.0. If your company (law firms especially) doesn't have either of these versions it's time to get yourself upgraded. At the same time, it might be a good idea to train your lawyers and staff on how to do redaction correctly and easily with Acrobat.
Redacting stuff the Acrobat way.....
1. Choose View > Toolbars > Redaction.
2. (Optional) To set the appearance of redaction marks, click Redaction Properties.
3. Select the Mark For Redaction tool .
4. Mark items you want to remove by doing any of the following:
* Double-click to select a word or image.
* Press Ctrl as you drag to select a line, a block of text, an object, or an area.
Use this method to select areas of a page in a scanned document.
To preview how your redaction marks will look, hold the pointer over the marked area.
5. To redact the marked items, click Apply Redactions in the Redaction toolbar.
6. Click OK to remove the items. The items aren’t permanently removed from the document until you save it.
7. If you want to search for and remove hidden information in the document by using the Examine Document
feature, click Yes. Otherwise, click No.
8. Choose File > Save, and specify a filename and location. If you don’t want to overwrite the original file, save the
file to a different name, location, or both.
...and finally as Sir Trevor MacDonald would say..
Gloucester lost in a close fought, low scoring game of rugby with Harlequins, but the bonus point earned keeps us top of the table, temporarily..
Guinness Premiership : Table
Team P PD PTS
1 Gloucester 15 50 46
2 Sale 14 69 45
3 London Irish 15 117 43
4 Bath 13 62 42
5 Harlequins 14 54 39
What a busy day I had yesterday, SIX Acrobat 9 seminars in Manchester and around York. Now, I know I can use Connect for this kind of thing and in fact, I shall be running 6 eSeminars next Tuesday and Thursday. In this case though I think it helped to be face to face onsite.
As has recently been the trend, we were talking about ePortfolios, running Flash inside Acrobat and Reader, enabling the free reader to add Comments, digital signatures etc., working with 3D models, converting video on the fly and dynamic eForms, you know, all those things that ONLY ACROBAT CAN DO :-)
Did I shout there, sorry. It was a good day though and I look forward to running more seminars an masterclasses in the future, let me know if you want me to run one for your organisation!
Looking at the route of the day.....
Perhaps I should use Connect more often!
I noticed today a few nice reviews of Acrobat.com and thought I should point to them so that you don't just have to take my word for it that it's a blooming good service.
So, first of all Tom Strumski notes that.....
"The exciting part is the ability to easily share documents, thus eliminating the need for large email attachments."
I forget how much of a pain large emails can be.... read his full thoughts here
Tom Johnson on the other had has checked out Connect Now at Acrobat.com and likes the free virtual meeting room...
But my favourite quote has to go to Adrian Rodriguez who, regarding Connect Now simply says
"First of all, it completely rocks my face off."
Adrian, I hope we haven't hurt your face too much by rocking it off. Didn't John Woo make a film about that a few years ago?
In other, unconnected news.... see what I did there? I'm wondering if you, dear reader, ever use Microsoft Project. If you do and you're currently reading these words, I wonder if you could do me a small favour and add a short comment on the Blog saying so? I'm interested in finding out 2 things....
1. Is there a group of people using MS Project that are interested in Acrobat and PDF generally.
2. Is anyone reading this?
Grazie Mille
Spartacus
So, the Publishing Expo went OK, I'll be honest, not the best presentation/demo I've ever given. I didn't help myself by getting my finish time for the presentation wrong and only allowing myself 35 minutes instead of 45, I wondered why I was having to speed through some content. However, I'm going to try and rectify things by using Captivate to capture my demonstration of Acrobat's publishing tools.
This week I'm out visiting some of our channel partners again and greaty looking forward to the experience. A week or so ago, I visited a couple of partners and was simply asked "What can Acrobat do that some other products can't". Well, all it took was around 10 minues showing ePortfolios, Multimedia and Flash capabilities, Reader enablement and those chaps were sold. We've been developing Acrobat for years and guess what, we've been doing more than just tinkering with the menus, there's real DEPTH of capability there. Other products might look similar, but in comparison, it's just a veneer.
By the way, I should also point out that the Acrobat User Community have a free eSeminar running on the 18th Feb at 10:00 am US Pacific time, that's 6:00pm UK time, perhaps not the most convenient but worth a look if you can. It's being run by my colleague Ali Hanyaloglu and despite his tricky to pronounce name, he knows all you'd ever want to know about Acrobat.
To join the eSeminar, register at this link.... http://www.acrobatusers.com/events/online/279
Ali would love to have you along!
Well, let's hope tomorrow goes better!
Hiya, as I sit here typing I don't know what I'm nore worried about... 1. My presentation tomorrow at the Publishing Expo 2009 (at Olympia, hope to see you there) or 2. England against Spain starting in around 15 mins.
Actually, I'm looking forward to the Publishing Expo, I enjoy doing the one to many Acrobat seminars and events and think they're really invaluable in terms of getting the message across to our customer base.
The only issue I have is that I always assume the publishing crowd (especially) are so knowledgeable on Acrobat that I've got to deliver some high value stuff.... oh well, I'll be back online after the footy finishes I expect1
TTFN
Steve
It has indeed, a whole week and I haven't posted a blog entry. Last week was pretty darned hectic but I did manage to go and see a few of our resellers. The times they are a biting, I really shouldn't misquote like that. Times are hard and people are, not unnaturally looking to economise, who could have failed to notice even Microsoft announcing redundancies?
It's noticeable that my seminars on Acrobat spend more time talking about the functionality that means you don't have to buy other software, rather than just 'cool stuff Acrobat can do'. There's a whole host of eForms tools, OCR software, Archiving, Redaction and 3D viewers you don't need to buy and install, the list goes on.... Presentation software, documnt compression/zip tools, even collaboration services (thanks, Acrobat.com).
The number of times I visit a client or partner and find that they have spent money on software with capabilities that they already have in Acrobat... well, it's too many to count and a real shame. I really must do a better job of articulating our value to people.
As i've been typing it's also snowed here, so in recognition of my childlike inability to concentrate on any given subject for more than a couple of minutes, here's a pic!
OK, so it's not that impressive, if you look closely, you can just make out the footprints of a mouse that was briefly inconvenienced by the snow but that's about it.... I'm not proud, just easily distracted.
I just wanted to thank all those people who decided not to use the M1 on Friday, it made the round trip (4 hours each way) from Home to York much more pleasant. I'd also like to thank the partner organisation I visited on Friday for letting me use their offices and share some knowledge on what's happening with Acrobat.
We were specifically looking at the extra capabilities of Acrobat 9 Professional Extended over Acrobat 9 Professional. Since that's a mouthful, I'll refer to Acrobat 9 Professional Extended as APEX! We ran a number of sesions covering... well, basically the features highlighted in the slide below....
I believe the sessions went wel, I'm just waiting for feedback today..... fingers crossed!
Morning!
Late last year we wrote a contributed article for Injection Molding magazine highlighting the many benefits of PDF for collaboration. This article is now live on their site. It is also running in the current issue of their printed magazine for those of you who still like the feel of wood pulp composite in your hands...
The article is at: http://www.plasticstoday.com/imm/articles/software-collaborating-global-teams.
While this article is highlighted on an Injection molding site, the content applies across all MFG segments. I hope you’ll find the article good reading.
In other news, I'm girding my loins for a long day trip to Yorkshire tomorrow, probably an eight hor round trip... If everyone could avoid the M1 tomorrow, it would really be a help.
On Monday I presented to my fellow colleagues (now that phrase doesn't look right to me!) on the subject of Portfolios in Acrobat.... yup, it's a theme right now.
Well I wanted to reinforce the session with something and I was plesantly surprised when this video appeared at the Adobe Lounge.... What's that you say? You haven't heard of the Adobe lounge? Well it's home to a whole series of Podcasts and Vidcasts covering tips, tricks and hints about using Acrobat.... So, not the sleazy wine bar you might have thought it was.
here's the url for the main page...
http://www.acrobatpodcast.com/
....and here's the url for the Vidcast on using Portfolios, featuring computer guru Steve Dotto of DottoTech and Adobe's Stephen Fehr.
http://www.acrobatpodcast.com/index.php?post_id=423343
To watch the video, just click on the little "Pod" logo.
Just a quick one on this, I think I've mentioned that Acrobat 9 can produce Geospatially aware documents, well, if you browse on over to those lovely people at Acrobatusers.com you can see a whole library of Geo aware PDF's. One in partucular is very relevant, the inaguration parade route for President-elect Barak Obama!
Take a look here....
I spent last week at the BETT education show at Olympia in London. Of all the shows and events I help out with, I'd have to say it's my favourite. This year I gave a few presentations on using Acrobat for ePortfolios and it does seem that this is going to be a theme over the next few months as everyone who has seen them want to know more.
Indeed, I followed up BETT with a customer visit on Friday to a creative agency in London who also wanted to talk Portfolios. I arrived in my suit and of course felt overdressed instantly, I really should remember my customers better.... I looked like a visiting Accountant. (no offence, Accountants)
As I'm sure I've mentioned before Portfolios can really change the way in which you present many pieces of related information.
It’s really easy to make a PDF Portfolio and add files to it. You can create folders within your PDF Portfolio, delete component files and folders, edit component filenames, and add and edit descriptions of component files.
here's how....
1. Create your Portfolio and add files
Create a PDF Portfolio
Choose File > Create PDF Portfolio.
Add files to a PDF Portfolio
From an open PDF Portfolio, do one of the following:
• Choose File > Modify PDF Portfolio > Add Files, and select one or more files.
• Choose File > Modify PDF Portfolio > Add Existing Folder, and select a folder.
• On the desktop or from a folder, drag any files or folders into the PDF Portfolio
work area.
Create a folder in a PDF Portfolio
Choose File > Modify PDF Portfolio > Create New Folder.
Remove files and folders from a PDF Portfolio
Select one or more files or folders in the PDF Portfolio and press Delete.
If you delete a folder, all of the files within it are deleted from the PDF Portfolio.
2. Customize your Portfolio
Choose a layout
1 From an open PDF Portfolio, choose File > Modify PDF Portfolio > Edit Portfolio.
2 In the Edit Portfolio pane, select Choose A Layout.
3 If necessary, choose a category from the pop-up menu.
4 Click the layout you want.
Add a welcome page and header
1 Choose File > Modify PDF Portfolio > Edit Portfolio.
2 In the Edit Portfolio pane, choose Add Welcome & Header.
3 Select either Welcome Page or Header, and then select a template from the list.
4 Click in the boxes to add content.
5 As needed, select a text or image box and specify size, background color,
and other properties.
Select a color scheme
1 Choose File > Modify PDF Portfolio > Edit Portfolio.
2 In the Edit Portfolio pane, choose Select A Color Scheme.
3 Click the color buttons to preview color schemes, or click Customize Color Scheme
and specify the colors.
3.Add details about your files
Specify file details
The File Details view lists PDF Portfolio component files in table format, with columns
such as file descriptions, size, and modification dates. You can customize the columns
that appear in the File Details view.
1 Choose File > Modify PDF Portfolio > Edit Portfolio.
2 In the Edit Portfolio pane, choose Specify File Details.
3 Do any of the following under Specify File Details:
• To show or hide a column in the list, select or deselect it.
• To add a column, type the name in the Add A Column box, select a data type
from the menu, and click the Add button.
• To delete a column, select it and click the Delete button. You cannot delete
preset columns.
• To change the order of a column, select it and click the up or down arrow.
• To specify the order in which files appear when the PDF Portfolio is initially
opened, select a column name from the Initial Sort menu. Then click the button
for ascending or descending order. Initial Sort affects Home view as well as
File Details view. To create a custom sort order, add a new column, specify
a data type, and enter a value for each document. (For example, create a column
named My Sort and specify Number as the data type. Then enter 1 for the first
document, 2 for the second, and so on.) You can then specify this as the
Initial Sort order.
.... I think... yup, I'm sure I've told you this before, hang on a mo....
... yup, here it is
http://blogs.adobe.com/spartacusacrobat/2008/07/acrobat_9_portfolios.html
In fact, last time I included some screencaps too.
Well, that doesn't diminish the need for me to post on eportfolios again, the feature is really usefull and I can only see more and more people using it as a way of adding some personlaisation and pazazzz (check spelling) to their published information.
Finally, in other news.... Manchester United go top of the Premiership! Gloucester lose in a muddy sluggy boggy soggy (it was wet) affair to Cardiff Blues and as a result look to be out of further participation in the Heineken Cup (The Rugby equivalent of the Champions League), so an up and down weekend sportswise.
>sigh<
TTFN
Steve
Hi there, let's talk about version compatibility of Acrobat PDFMakers. I get asked about this quite a lot and it has been a difficult question to answer.... until now, thanks to the work of my colleagues in the US.
A quick reminder, a PDFMaker is an Acrobat feature that operates within many business applications, such as Microsoft Office applications, AutoCAD, and Lotus Notes. When you install Acrobat onto your computer, PDFMaker buttons appear in the authoring application. Using PDFMaker within an authoring application is a simple, one-click procedure.
The PDFMakers were introduced with Acrobat 3.0 so they've been around for quite some time now, but I'm surprised how many people still "Print to PDF" even from applications like MSWord, Excel and so on. Now, there are PDFMakers for a load of applications.
Because PDFMakers run in 3rd party applications and we rely on their APIs to help us add navigational controls to the resulting PDF, we've been able to add new capabilities to the PDFMakers over time as the APIs in the native applications become more robust. Unfortunately, the 3rd party APIs are not consistent across versions and we need to drop support for a particular PDFMaker feature on a particular version of the 3rd party software.
To help better understand which version of Acrobat works best with which version of your other desktop applications, My colleague Joel Geraci has published a convenient table which lists the supported and unsupported version information about 3rd party applications supported for PDFMakers across the last 4 Acrobat versions.
You can see this table on Joel's Blog here...
http://blogs.adobe.com/pdfitmatters/2008/12/version_compatibility_of_acrob.html
Hi there and a Happy New Year to you all.... The first thing I wanted to point you towards in 2009 is Adobe TV and more specifically the Acrobat Channel.
here's the url... http://tv.adobe.com/#ch+Adobe%20Acrobat
The channel is full of customer stories, tips and tricks and other product information. It's well worth the time to watch.
It's December 22nd and for all of us Northern Hemisphere-ers it means just one thing.... The days are getting longer and Summer is coming.
I'm back from Holiday/Sales Confrence / Illness and for 2009 am solely focussed on Acrobat. I'll still be using Connect Pro for demos etc. In fact I have one coming up in an hour so I'd better go prep.
TTFN
Steve
So yes, I do know the way.
It's been a while since posting and I now find myself in San Jose at Adobe's annual sales conference. Yup FY09 has started. Now, I can't tell you anything that happens this week from a company prspective, but if I do anything noteworthy, I'll brag about it here... (don't hold your breath).
It's currently 06:57 here and I've been up since 04:30, don't you just love a little jetlag?
News news news, I've been using PDF portfolios for a while now and they're a really great way of pulling information together. However, there are many peopel out there taking the portfolio work to the next level (see some past posts on Portfolios). Adobe have pulled some of the more fun ones together.... take a look here...
http://www.adobe.com/go/pdfgames
I like the work of Naked Penguin Boy myself, don't read anything into that.....
I was visiting a customer this week when I was asked a question that flummoxed (check that spelling there) me.
I had been showing how easy it is now to incorporate Adobe Flash content inside a PDF file. Everyone was pleased and decided that this would be their preferred method for sharing prototype Flash apps with each other (not everyone was on the same network) in a nice secure wrapper. (I had already shown how easy it is to add security to a PDF.)
Now, since I had also shown how we can use Acrobat and PDF as a method for enabling commenting and general collaboration, the audience put two and two together and thought, "great we can send out our flash work and comment on it". Now I wanted to confidently say "yes, that's a cinch" but I couldn't, I'm just too darn honest... well, I didn't have a clue actually, so I promised to go away and find out if you could.
Good news everyone! (I've always wanted to say that)... Thanks to my colleague Joel Geraci with his huge brain and great Blog, I found the answer from way back in August....
http://blogs.adobe.com/pdfdevjunkie/2008/08/enabling_commenting_of_swf_con.html
There, Joel explains exactly how you can do just that, it takes a little coding but if you're a Flash programmer, I suspect that shouldn't be a massive issue.
There's been a bit of noise recently about something from Adobe called Cocomo. So... what's that all about then?
Codename "Cocomo" is a Platform as a Service that allows Flex developers to easily add real-time social capabilities into their RIA (rich Internet applications). Comprised of both Flex-based client components and a hosted services infrastructure, Cocomo allows you to build real-time, multi-user applications with Flex in less time than ever before. And because Acrobat.com hosts the service, issues like deployment, maintenance, and scalability are taken care of for you.
Add social features to your existing Flex apps or build totally new ones, such as real-time productivity/collaboration apps, multiplayer games, and audio/video chat.
Features of the Cocomo beta include the following
* VoIP Audio
* Webcam Video
* Chat
* Multi-User Whiteboards
* Real-Time File Sharing
* User Management
* Roles and Permissions
* Robust Data Messaging
You see, Cocomo is actually already in use in Acrobat 9 and the free Adobe Reader® 9 software, as well as Acrobat.com, (you remember my Cloud Computing piece?) where the platform provides end users with access to real-time collaboration within and around PDF documents...
I'd suggest you go here... http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/cocomo/ and find out a bit more, maybe even signup for the free public Beta?
Crikey, people read my blog!!
Rowan has asked me to expand on why I don't overly subscribe to the paperless office theory.
Well, I guess my thoughts are based around the behaviour of people. Let me say first, that as an Acrobat evangelist, I do believe that through use of Acrobat and the free Adobe Reader we can enable many many documents to live in electronic form only.
Indeed, I would clearly also prefer this method of working because of the many inherent advantages of using electronic documents. I won't bang on about them now because, to an extent, that's what this whole Blog is about.... but basically I'm a big fan.
But back to paper and why people still want it. I've often started seminars and presentations about Acrobat stating that I'm still a fan of paper, mainly to surprise the audience but I do follow up with reasons...
1. Paper is highly transportable, with the caveat that I'm not talking about a 5000 page Airbus maintenance manual. For many purposes it's a compact way of carrying data.
2. Paper doesn't need power, an operating system, or a device to work
3. You were taught how to use paper documents when you were 3, or 4 or 5 .. well you get the point.
4. When I send you a paper document, I'm confident that it will arive in the same format I sent it, the pagination won't have changed, font's will be correct, images won't be lost etc..
So, it's ubiquitous, transportable, has low usage requirements and we all know how to work it. I often state that "any electronic system you create to share information must be AT LEAST as good as a bit of paper"
(by the way, I believe Acrobat and PDF match my exacting criteria)
EDIT: Yup, it has been pointed out that Acrobat addresses point 4 in the list above. I really shouldn't write stream of conciousness blog posts. I guess that list is why I think paper is still valuable to people and I do think that as electronic alternatives go, Acrobat and PDF also do a good job of addressing point 1 (very transportable, think tiny flash drive) ... Point 3, well, I think most people are comfy using the free Adobe Reader these days.
Oh yes, the behaviour of people, I've watched people in offices, both for my work and in my hobby of stalking... (too much information?)
Anyway, pretty much everywhere I go, I still see people printing documents, why do they do this? Mainly it seems so that they can sit down and read through them. Often this is accompanied by changing the environment the person is working in, you know, move to a comfy chair, change lighting etc. So I think there's a real comfort factor to be had in reading paper based documents and a mind/mood change that can accompany working with paper.
I've also tried a number of different devices eBook readers etc, Laptops, Tablet PC's, handheld devices and I have to say, whilst comfortably being a child of the computer age, I still find them less comfortable to use for longer periods than paper.
Finally, I also consider the many different sizes and formats of documents. Whilst Acrobat can support documents of almost any size (a maximum document size measured in square metres) the devices we view them on impose constraints that mean we have to zoom and pan for very large page sizes. I see this a lot in the Architecture / Construction space.
Well, that was all a bit of a ramble, but I hope it made some sense. What I think I'm trying to say is that I believe in striving to minimise the use of paper, but I do believe that we will probably never reach a position where paper is eliminated from our workplaces.
Let me know what you think.
....all went well yesterday. I guess I knew it would, but as my colleagues will testify, I'm always concerned that I should give good value for money when I present.
The general concensus is that, almost by definition, both Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Connect are inherently green products.
Acrobat, of course helps us to reduce the amount of paper we use (I'll never subscribe to the "paperless office" theory but Acrobat does help) This also reduces the cost and impact of having to transport paper based documents too. It's a win-win-win scenario, greener working practices save you money too and indeed can result in a more innovative and engaging way of working with customers and partners.
Connect gives us similar benefits in terms of people interaction, reducing (but not removing altogether) the need for business travel. You can communicate, collaborate and even train online.
By the way, I feel bad for asking so late, but how was your halloween? It seems that year upon year this event gets celebrated with more gusto in the UK, we have upped our game to almost US levels of participation. I can still remember a time before "trick or treat"-ing children wandering the streets, high on a sugar rush from all the Haribos, Celebrations, Flumps and other assorted sweets. So this year.. I dressed as the Dark Knight (as opposed to the 1960's Adam West Batman)... No offence Adam if you're reading this.. :-)
Saturday night will see another little soiree, this time belatedly celebrating Guy Fawkes night. Now, that's a proper British event, perhaps e should export it to the US in return for our immporting of the Halloween regalia?.... I can't quite see America embracing "Unabomber Night" myself.
....back to work........
Soooo, tomorrow I'm presenting at the Green IT Expo at London's Barbican.
More details of the event can be found here: http://www.greenitexpo.com/
I'm really pleased to have the opportunity to present there because I think IT has the opportunity (and has had for some time) to make a considerable positive impact on the way we use our planet's resouces and how much damage our daily work does to the environment.
I'll mainly try to talk about how Green IT is actually a win-win scenario for organisations, as long as they understand the need to make their systems engaging for customers and other stakeholders. I think we can not only reduce our impact on the environment, but reduce our costs at the same time and make the lives of our customers that much easier... perhaps that's win-win-win... :-)
I hope I do a good job there, I always wonder/worry that i'm not delivering enough value in my presentations, hope to tell you about it on Thursday.... I'll count the number of people who nod off during my 30 mins....
I really should remind you about Shared Reviews... Everyone that I show this to seems to get the concept really easily and, more to the point, they seem to like it....
With Adobe® Acrobat® 9 software, you can shorten review cycles and enable everyone on your team to see and respond to each other's comments as they're made, without turning into a bunfight! Best of all, you have all the comments combined in a single file that you can view and control to help you keep your work on track.
So, let's start by initiating a shared review:
1.Prepare the PDF file. Save the PDF file you want participants to review. If you want to call attention to particular questions or topics for discussion, add comments to the PDF file.
2.Send the PDF file for a shared review. Choose Comments > Send for Shared Review. You can share any document that can be modified with comments. If a document has security settings that do not allow comments, you will be notified....
3.Select a method for collecting comments. You decide where to post the PDF file and collect comments from reviewers. Select "Automatically download & track comments with Acrobat.com" or "Automatically collect comments on my own internal server" to use any of your own network servers.
4.Invite reviewers. Enter the e-mail addresses for recipients, or select the addresses from your e-mail address book, and then set a deadline. After the deadline, commenting tools will no longer be available on the shared review server, your reviewers will have missed the boat.
5.Send the PDF file. Click Send to post the PDF file to the server and send e-mail invitations to the review participants. A copy of the shared review file will be saved in the same location, with the word "review" appended to it, so you won't mistake it for the original.
Now you're ready to go. Once you've started a shared review, you can read and reply to comments on the shared review server. You can also read all the comments after the review is over. Use the Tracker, within Acrobat, to see who has commented, send e-mail reminders to reviewers, or change the deadline.
It's all really easy and well, it just works! If you want to use Acrobat.com as your review server, just browse on over there and set up a FREE account. You'll get gigabytes of fre disc space that will always remain free and anyone you invite can access the documents there for easy commenting and review.
Now that I've hit you with some business stuff, I've earned the right to talk non-business with you..... most people don't read this far down anyway I reckon. So I think I could say pretty much anything I wanted and no-one would notice........ Oohhh it's tempting, it really is... politics, religion, sheds! All taboo topics can be discussed here now....
Sooo.... weather's been a bit chilly recently huh?
Oh OK, I'll come up with something more controversial tomorrow..... TTFN
Spartacus!
Wow, I've been on the road again for the last 2 weeks and as a result haven't had the time to post much about my oh-so-glamorous life. Leeds anyone? Leicester? London? Legoland? Yes it's been a fortnight of places begining with the letter 'L' I'm living on Sesame Street!
Blackpool!
Well, Lytham St Annes more like, but it's close enough to see the tower! I visited an existing client to show them how much unexplored value there was in the Acrobat product. As usual Acrobat 9 delivered and the guys were really interested in its capabilities around Collaboration, data gathering through eForms and the security features available.
As is often the case, the discussions also led us towards considering Adobe's LiveCycle suite, take a look here for some more information..
http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/livecycle/
"Adobe LiveCycle® ES (Enterprise Suite) software is an integrated server solution that blends data capture, information assurance, document output, process management, and content services to help you create and deliver rich and engaging applications that reduce paperwork, accelerate decision-making, and help ensure regulatory compliance."
Well, erm, whatever, but the point being that many of the things you can do in Acrobat that are very much user driven, can be automated and enhanced with the LiveCycle suite of server based applications.
It looks like this....
If you like the way Acrobat works with eForms, this can be scaled up to an enterprise level with LiveCycle Forms ES.... Want to automate the generation of PDF files from your data systems, LiveCycle PDF Generator, Oh that's all well and good Steve, but my business processes aren't up to scratch yet... LiveCycle Process management ES.... the list goes on but you get the point.
Flew back from Italy on Sunday night, woke up Monday and by the afternoon had a cold, aww blow it, let's call it man-flu. Why does this always happen on flights to me?
Hot on the heels of the portfolios mentioned below.....
A friend of mine (he'll hate me saying that) sent me a url for a website from David Gilmour (Pink Floyd anyone), well it seems the site conbtains some really excellent multimedia PDF's.... so i checked it out....
....and by crimminy, it does!
Here's the url:
http://www.davidgilmour.com/freedom/index.htm
My friends tell me that Mr Gilmour may at one time have been in "the Floyd"
The PDF files were created by another talented chap, Harry Hemus, if you like what he's done (and why wouldn't you eh?), then check his website..
....Great use of PDF Harry.
A very good use of the sexy portfolio capability in Acrobat 9 was pointed out to me. If you follow the following url....
http://www.technologyreview.com/tr35/pdf.aspx
You end up at the Technology Review innovators webpage, it contains a whole load of technology related PDF Portfolios, take a look, I spent far to long perusing their work.... when I....err.... should have been working :-)
Well, I do like to play a bit of golf, albeit stymied somewhat by my poor game!
Well done to the USA team in securing the Ryder Cup, all I can add is Booooo! (Weekly)
Yeeee-haaawwww
Hello,
well, as I type I'm missing the PCPro awards in London, I don't think Acrobat was up for an award this year, but I hope Photoshop does well. It's good to see PCPro did their best to advertise the awards as an upmarket, upscale affair, just look at their website....
I think I give the page a certain something..... a certain, "is he gurning or does Steve actually look like that" quality!
Well, it really did you know.... I'm not lying!
I had the opportunity to present to some very senior chaps at a systems integrator and facilities management company a couple of days ago.
Unfortunately, as I arrived at their offices I found out that the MD was unable to attend because there had been some serious train issues. As a result, we started the meeting with the MD on a speakerphone. Luckily we were talking about Adobe Connect, so we asked if he was at a laptop and it turned out he was.
I read out the url for my meeting room and within a minute we had a Connect conference up and running with my webcam, full screen sharing and the presentation recommenced.
Unsurprisingly everyone was really happy with the ease of connecting and general usability, I think the perception in the past was that you had tpo trade of easy accessibility with functionality.... not with Adobe Connect.
Sorry there, sounded like a sales bloke, won't happen again.
Don't forget, to try this out yourself, just pop along to
Hiya, bit of a cryptic entry this one, but I felt the need to post about the people I work with rather than the products. Every now and then you get plesantly surprised by people. Just when you think you're working in a huge multinational software company and it's all about the targets, the software and the business objectives your colleagues do things that remind you that where your work is all about the people you work with. I'm incredibly lucky, the Acrobat bods from all around the globe are a really excellent bunch of people, they all know why, it's nothing to do with me, just some great behaviour I've witnessed showing how we support a colleague in a time of need, I feel quite lucky to be a part of this team.
This must be my least green week ever. Through dint of some awful planning, I spent/am spending....
Monday, working from, saving the planet and such
Tuesday, in Cambridge
Wednesday, Penzance (5.5 hours in the car each way, ouch!)
Thursday, London office, well done Steve, used the train. Slept all the way in!
Friday, Up to Manchesterford to see a customer, then off to Durham..
Saturday, presentation in Durham followed by drive home
Sunday, make a Steve shaped dent in the sofa
Total miles 1400.... Effect on global health, nasty! Status of Steve, older and wisened!
Let this be a lesson to us all, with some better planning I could have removed the need for 2 of these trips using Acrobat Connect Professional. I have been doing so recently and this week has served as a good reminder of just how beneficial to my health the reduction in travel has been, thanks to using Connect!
BTW: I look awful rigtht now as I type, I need some sleep.
So there I was, you know how these entries start.....
I was speaking to a client this morning who wanted to work with AutoCAD files. Now, AutoCAD is hugely popular in the Construction and Engineering industries, however it does have the occasional limitation in terms of sharing the information it produces.
The easiest way to share CAD drawings with the largest number of people is to use Acrobat. It's really easy to convert from AutoCAD drawings into PDF files...
You can use PDFMaker to convert AutoCAD files from within the AutoCAD application. You can also use the Batch Conversion feature to convert many AutoCAD files in one operation. Even if you don’t have AutoCAD, you can convert AutoCAD files to PDF from Acrobat.
So let's start with a quick look at how to convert AutoCAD files when AutoCAD is not installed
The default Acrobat installation installs Autodesk filters. These filters allow you to convert files in DWG, DWF, DST, DWT, and DXF format into PDF, without the native application installed.
1. In Acrobat, choose File > Create PDF > From File.
2. (Optional) From the Files Of Type menu, select Autodesk AutoCAD, then click the Settings button and change the conversion settings as needed.
3. Locate and select the AutoCAD file.
4. If the Adobe PDF Settings For Autodesk AutoCAD Documents dialog box appears, specify the settings as needed, and click OK.
"Nice! So I don't even need to have AutoCAD installed to be able to turn a CAD file into a PDF for commenting and sharing with all of my non-CAD aware colleagues in Finance and Legal"
So, now then, let's assume that I have AutoCAD installed, how can I turn my work into a PDF for sharing?
Firstly, good news! When converting individual AutoCAD files, you don't usually need to change page size and plotting settings. PDFMaker uses the appropriate layout page size and plotting information to create a correctly sized PDF file.
1. To change the PDF conversion settings, choose Adobe PDF > Change Conversion Settings in AutoCAD.
2. Do one of the following:
• Click a button in the Adobe PDF toolbar: Convert To Adobe PDF or Convert To Adobe PDF And Send For Review .
• Choose Adobe PDF > Convert To Adobe PDF.
• Choose Adobe PDF > Convert To Adobe PDF And Email.
• Choose Adobe PDF > Convert To Adobe PDF And Send For Review.
3. In the Choose Layouts dialog box, add or remove layouts as needed. To reorder the layouts, select a layout from the Layouts In PDF list, and click Move Up or Move Down.
4. To determine how the AutoCAD layers are converted, select one of the following, and then click Continue:
• Flatten All Layers. When layers are flattened, only those entities belonging to layers that are not frozen and are printable appear in the converted PDF.
• Retain All Or Some Layers. In the next dialog box, specify the layers to include in the resulting PDF.
5. Specify a filename and location in the Save As dialog box, and click Save.
"So now I can take the work I produce in AutoCAD and convert it to PDF so that those chaps in marketing and Sales can get a better visualisation of what we're doing"
MORE!!
Blimey, you ask a lot don't you? Well, I'm busy so let's just say that from here we could really delve into working with CAD layers and even running batch processing for converting multiple files in one hit! But you can find out about that some other time ...... :-)
I'm not always in a suit.
It seems I'm being lambasted for posting a pic of me that shows me as some kind of uptight pencil neck in a suit (Albeit a crushingly handsome pencilneck)
I think it's important to show that I have a lighter, more casual side (as if the purple and pink stripey tie wasn't enough) so here goes....
Here I am in relaxed weekend attire, describing to a close friend how big somethign is, the rest of the details are unimportant!
More product stuff to follow later......... I'm still getting high on using Acrobat Portfolios....
......and by the way, as posted in a comment on my last blog entry, Connect Professional looks just fine and dandy in Chrome too!
Well done to those pluckky chaps at Google. You may not have heard of them but they're a software company based in California (seems there's quite a buzz there at the moment). It seems they've decided to have a go at writing a browser, well as I type I'm editing my Blog using this thing called "Chrome" I believe it's currently in what's called 'Beta'.
Do you know what? It might just get me upgrading from Internet Explorer 3 that I've been using all these years! Perhaps more importantly, I've been using it to open and run Adobe Acrobat documents and all looks well, but that's not really a surprise now is it?
Watching this space with interest........
Cesar Salad, I don't know why, it's just taken my fancy...
Anyway, on to the producty stuff.
As you know, well, at least I hope you know, I also look after Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional, perhaps the worlds only thirteen syllable product.
I've recently been lucky enough to be showing it to audiences far and wide, all from the comfort of my home office, I sat near the window and used the sun as my lighting.... I really couldn't be greener if I tried. So, all well and good thus far. The only problem is the quality of my Webcam... it's awful, I'm not surprised however as i think it cost me £15 (around $300 dollars for my American friends) about 7 years ago.
The resolution and colour quality is so poor, to be honest, I think most of my customers think I'm made from Lego, take a look...
Here I am.....
But once my webcam gets a hold of my inner soul, I look like this...
Still, on the upside I do now have a rugged square jawline, watch out David Coulthard, I'm comming for your fanbase!
So, even Flash and (deep breath...) Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear. If anyone can suggest a good portable webcam, I'm all ears.... (not sow's ears obviously, lets not extend the similie)
What Ho!
Spartacus
Do you know, I've just spent 40 minues making a great Blog entry on Watermarking.... then I hit the "go back a page in my browser" button instead of the backspace key... result? No more blog entry.
Lesson learned that hard way.... save your work regularly. It's not like I haven't been in IT for years and had multiple blue screens of death with loss of work as a result.... I should really learn!
Anyway.... Watermarking over multiple files.... Suhail asked me about this following a recent Blog entry on Watermarking.
I first thought of the "Document Processing" menu and the "Batch" commands option. But then I remembered......
Add or replace a watermark, with an open document
1. Choose Document > Watermark > Add.
2. (Optional) To apply the watermark selectively to individual pages, click Page Range Options. Then specify a page range and choose a Subset option, as needed.
3. Specify the watermark:
-------- Then do some noice formatting of the watermark ----------
7. (Optional) To apply the same settings to additional PDFs, click Apply To Multiple. Click Add Files, choose Add Files or Add Open Files, and then select the files. Then in the Output Options dialog box, specify your folder and filename preferences, and click OK.
Now, I can't quite remember if this feature extends back to say, Acrobat 7 but if not, use the Batch processing option, you can add Watermarks there...
Now.... in other news
1. Manchesterford United Town have been grouped with Celtic and some other chaps in the Champions League (that's proper football and United are the current Champions of Europe)
2. England seem to have finally learned how to play Cricket again, even if it's only the one day version of the game)
3. I'm running all over the counrty (OK not actually running... have you seen me run!) holding Acrobat seminars for Government departments and Public sector bodies.
These semainars have been great fun and are aimed just at showing the capabilities of Acrobat, mainly to people who have already purchased the product! Just look at this happy seminar attendee....
If you're working in the UK Public sector and think your team or office could do with a Lunch and learn type of session from Mr Spartacus, pop me a blog comment and I'll see what I can do.
The seminars are free and I promise I won't try to sell you anything.
Just a quickie, because I've been asked about geospatial PDFs.......
A geospatial PDF contains information that is required to georeference location data. When geospatial data is imported into a PDF, Acrobat retains the geospatial coordinates. With the coordinates, you can view and interact with the PDF to find and mark location data.
Geospatial data can be either vector or raster based or a combination of both. After you import geospatial data into Acrobat, you can use the data in a variety of ways:
* Find and mark location coordinates.
* Measure distance, perimeter, and area.
* Change the coordinate system and measurement units.
* Copy location coordinates to clipboard, and then use them to show locations in several web mapping services.
* Register a raster image to create a geospatially aware PDF.
You can create a geospatial PDF in one of these ways:
* Opening a geospatially enabled TIFF (GeoTIFF) or JPEG 2000 file
* Georegistering a PDF map or scan of geospatial data
When you open an imported file, measurements, point position, and length are displayed in geographic coordinates, which you can change, measure, and mark up. You can also assemble a PDF map from a variety of sources.
Open GeoTIFF and JPEG 2000 files
GeoTIFF files and JPEG 2000 files are raster images that you can import as new documents or as new layers to an existing document. Acrobat preserves the geospatial coordinates embedded in the file. These files retain their geospatial data when they are imported. If you import these files to existing documents, their coordinate system is converted to the coordinate system of the document.
1. Choose File > Create PDF > From File.
2. Select the geospatially enabled file to import.
3. Select settings, and then click OK.
Import shapefiles
You can import a shapefile as a new layer to an existing PDF. The shapefile must overlap with the current PDF map. Otherwise, it is not imported. If it overlaps only partially, only the part that overlaps the current PDF is imported.
A shapefile consists of several files with differing filename extensions. Acrobat requires both the SHP file and the DBF file for importing.
1. Open a PDF map, and choose View > Navigation Panels > Layers.
2. Select Option on the Layer sidebar and click Import As Layer.
3. Browse to the SHP file and select it.
4. Click Settings and change the Line Properties to a solid line and the line color to blue.
Georegister a PDF map
Georegistration enables you to take any PDF map and add coordinates that map to real-world locations. To georegister a map, you need the boundary coordinates of the map (latitude and longitude). You also need the projection scale on which the map is based. With this information, Acrobat can accurately transform the map to WGS 1984, the standard reference frame for earth.
1. Open a PDF that contains a map image, and note the projection that the map is based on.
2. Choose Tools > Analysis > Geospatial Registration Tool
3. Type a name, and then draw a neatline around the perimeter of the map.
A neatline separates a map from the rest of the page. It is commonly drawn around the map borders. The neatline defines the map area and allows you to remove parts of the page that are not relevant to the map. Or, select Use Page Bounds As Neatline to use the page border as the neatline. Move around the PDF by using either scroll bars or arrow keys. However, selecting another tool, such as the Hand tool or Zoom tool cancels the registration process.
4. Click one corner of the map, and in the Geospatial Registration dialog box, type the latitude and longitude coordinates for the first point. The coordinates define the area that is registered.
5. Click in at least two remaining corners, and type the latitude and longitude coordinates for each. Then click Next.
6. Select the associated coordinate system and units (projection scale) to associate with the map and click OK.
I'm almost lost for words, yeah, like that's going to happen. So the GB team have surpassed their target of 35 medals (at least that's what I heard the target was). More importantly, the colour of those medals has been the surprise, 16 Golds with a possible 2-3 more (being optomistic).
What I really have enjoyed though, is the cycling. I can't remember a time where Great Britain have been so dominant in an Olympic discipline. It's a wonderful change to see British athelets step into an arena and see the competition think... oh no, it's a Brit! Rare and lovely to watch. I was lucky enough to watch some of the cycling world championships in Manchester, many people were worried that the GB team had peaked too soon (myself amongst them) but we've shown how well we can prepare when the funding and setup is right.
Well done to all our sportsmen and women and a little thanks also to UK Sport who seem to have put all the right elements together.
Oh well, back to work!
Well, I couldn't let it go by, a dull game followed by Penalties......
You beauty!
Our good friends at Winsoft posted a note in a recent blog post of mine and I thought it was worth a full entry in and of itself...
Acrobat 9 is now also available for Middle Eastern languages.
These dedicated versions of Acrobat 9 gather all the characteristics of the US versions plus enhanced and advanced features to handle Middle Eastern languages (Right to Left direction, non-Roman text, Hindi digits, etc.).
More information on www.winsoft-international.com
Availability:
Greek
Middle Eastern - Arabic
Middle Eastern - Hebrew
North African
Thanks Chaps!
Steve
It's been a while since I spent much time looking at Acrobat with reference to the AEC world...
One of the major announcements for Acrobat 9 that I didn't pick up on straight away was the support of the IFC file format in Acrobat Pro Extended (You'll recall, this is the replacement for Acrobat 3D). This is significant as it supports Building Information Modeling workflow's. This features allows you to share your 3D models via a pdf document and have full visualization and now object property data associated to the model. This allows us to develop functionality that will be supported by multiple 3D CAD applications on the market today. The IFC files formats that we are supporting are the IFC2x3 and IFC2x2.
IFC is an open standard data model where building information can be represented and shared between various processes and professions. It is a very dynamic, flexible model, and can be used from from early planning stages to a complete and very detailed model of the built environment.
So how does it work?
All you need access to is the IFC file. You do not have to have the native 3D CAD application installed on your computer. Just simply open Acrobat Pro Extended and drag and drop the IFC file into the open window. This will convert your model to pdf.
I can then zoom into an object and select that object and turn on my Model Tree (File - Navigation Panels - Model Tree). The result is now I can see all the IFC information associated to that particular object as shown below.
(Thanks to my colleague Jonathan Bowman for the image, check out his excellent blog, he is the Adobe Acrobat AEC Guru!)
So, you can see that's pretty straightforward The value of Acrobat Pro Extended is that it goes way beyond simple visualization. A lot of people want to compare us to current 3D viewers on the market. The value is that I am now able to access and utilise 89% of the worlds desktops as anyone with the Free Adobe Reader can also view, navigate and see the IFC information.
Of course, PDF is also a format that people are comfortable using, so one minute they're opening a PDF created from a Word document, the next it's a 3D file containing BIM information, easy peasy. No barriers to adoption!
Of course, we can also use all the other rich Acrobat functionality with the 3D model such as being able to combine this model with other documents, review and comment, collaborate, etc.
WOW! I may have just watched the most intense 24 laps of MotoGP racing ever!
If you didn't catch it live, try to watch a replay of yesterdays MotoGP race at Laguna Seca. I'm used to the occasionbal race where the last 8-10 laps are exciting, but this time round we had Casey Stoner versus the Doctor from Lap 1.
Most poeple (me included and I'm a Rossi fan) expected Casey to disappear into the distance but wow what a race. the first 24 laps saw the best 2 riders in the world swapping the lead multiple times, whilst pulling a lead on the rest of the field at around 0.8 seconds a lap, no one else was near! Some of the overtaking moves caused me to issue expetives from the sofa, this was like Ali v Foreman or Federer v Nadal.... bloomin brilliant!
It was just such a shame that Casey made an error on the 24th, only 8 laps to go and could have been the best race ever!
Hiya,
well, it's the topic of the month for many people, and (As Barry Norman used to say) why not. Portfolios can really change the way in which you present multiple pieces of related information. So yes, you can throw a lotta stuff together and make it look right pretty!
It’s really easy to make a PDF Portfolio and add files to it. You can create folders within your PDF Portfolio, delete component files and folders, edit component filenames, and add and edit descriptions of component files.
Use the Edit Portfolio pane to customize the layout, welcome page, header, and color scheme. You can also customize the File Details view with columns that you choose or create yourself.
How do I make a PDF Portfolio?
Choose File > Create PDF Portfolio.
(OK, that's an easy start)
So now how do I add files to a PDF Portfolio?
From an open PDF Portfolio, do one of the following:
* Choose File > Modify PDF Portfolio > Add Files, and select one or more files.
* Choose File > Modify PDF Portfolio > Add Existing Folder, and select a folder.
* On the desktop or from a folder, drag any files or folders into the PDF Portfolio work area.
Hmm, OK, how do I insert multimedia files in a PDF Portfolio?
You can convert component multimedia files, such as MOV, AVI, and WMV files, to PDF, SWF, or FLV files within a PDF Portfolio.
1. In Home View or File Details view, select one or more multimedia files in the PDF Portfolio.
2. In the PDF Portfolio toolbar, choose Modify > Convert To PDF or Convert To Flash Movie.
The Convert To Flash Movie command always converts to FLV format.
3. If a dialog box appears, specify the options as needed and click OK.
Choose your preferred layout
PDF Portfolio layout options enable you to present your bits and bobs in a layout that best fits your needs. For example, the Revolve layout allows readers to page through the document thumbnails one at a time, carousel style!
1. From an open PDF Portfolio, choose File > Modify PDF Portfolio > Edit Portfolio.
2. In the Edit Portfolio pane, select Choose A Layout.
3. If necessary, choose a category from the pop-up menu.
4. Click the layout you want.
You can also create your own custom layouts.
Now we're getting there.... Add a welcome page and header
You can include a welcome page and header in a PDF Portfolio. The welcome page, which appears when recipients open the PDF Portfolio file, can provide information or instructions for using the PDF Portfolio. To open or close the welcome page, click the Welcome Page button in the PDF Portfolio toolbar. The header appears at the top of the layout, and can contain important information like a logo, company name, and contact information. The welcome page and header can include text, images, or both, and can be arranged in various ways. You can even add a Flash animation (SWF or FLV file) to your welcome page.
1. Choose File > Modify PDF Portfolio > Edit Portfolio.
2. In the Edit Portfolio pane, choose Add Welcome & Header.
3. Select either Welcome Page or Header, and then select a template from the list.
4. Click in the boxes to add content.
5. As needed, select a text or image box and specify size, background color, and other properties.
Now I want my portfolio to have the colours I like
1. Choose File > Modify PDF Portfolio > Edit Portfolio.
2. In the Edit Portfolio pane, choose Select A Color Scheme.
3. Click the color buttons to preview color schemes, or click Customize Color Scheme and specify the colors.
Can I save it now?
To save a portfolio, you can simply hit the
1. Save the portfolio to your hard drive
2. Email the portfolio, to someone you love
3. Publish the portfolio to Acrobat.com and share with everyone.
Phew! I'd better have a lay down now in a darkened room, too much typing makes my old knuckles hurt, plus I type like a blacksmith pounding away at a new horseshoe!
Take a look at pone of my own portfolios here....
https://share.acrobat.com/adc/document.do?docid=daec44e7-95ee-40aa-a9fb-7ec6411a10a9
Hiya, so, Reader 9 is available for free download from Adobe.com well the actual url is....
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html
You'll see the page looks like this......
I'm sure I'll get comments on the size of Reader 9, someone will mention the word 'bloat' but once you've used the new capabilities and worked with a flash enabled PDF, you might, just might change your mind.
Also, did you notice the little eBay download option? It's our AIR based way of accessing eBay from your desktop, without a browser.... go on, give it a go.
At the same time as we announced Acrobat 9, Adobe also announced that a range of cloud computing type applications have been assembled under the acrobat.com banner...
If you browse over to www.acrobat.com this is what you can see....
As you can see, it's a site in Beta at the moment, with some great functionality. Acrobat.com is basically a set of online services — file sharing and storage, PDF converter, online word processor, and web conferencing — you can use to create and share documents, communicate in real time, and simplify working with others.
If you're still not sure about this cloud computing stuff, take a look at this weeks "Click" it's a technology programme from the BBC. It was shown on BBC1, News24 and I think BBC World.
The latest edition can be found online here....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/7465386.stm
.........Oh yes, it's worth a look because I'm in it, around the 3 minute mark, don't blink or you'll miss it!
It's free, so sign up now, try it out and tell them Spartacus sent you!
I visited a customer yesterday who asked about Accessibility in Acrobat, it's one of those areas we beat ourselves up about inside Adobe, perhaps unfairly.
Well, we've made some improvements, Acrobat 9 software includes some new accessibility features that I think, improve the performance of Acrobat when it interacts with assistive technologies such as screen readers.
New accessiblity features available in Acrobat 9 include:
* Table Editor tool in the TouchUp Read Order panel that facilitates the evaluation and repair of PDF tables for accessibility. The Table Editor tool features a user interface that provides users with an immediate indication of the scope and role of cells in tables within PDF files.
* TouchUp Read Order tool improvements that enhance support for editing multiline text blocks, and new Unicode-based text editing that in addition to the ISO Latin character set now provides direct support for Central European languages, with more to follow.
* Improved support for dynamic PDF forms that have been created using Adobe LiveCycle® Designer ES software. As tables render themselves according to the responses provided by users, the document's dynamic rendering is communicated to assistive technology.
For some more detailed information take a look here...
http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/products/acrobat/
Hiya,
just a quick post to remind everyone that my life isn't all glamour and expensive foreign travel. Yesterday I made a quick (?!) jaunt through britains motorway network up to the north-north part of England to talk with a customer about.... Acrobat Connect professional.
But.... Steve... couldn't you have.... STOP, yes I know what you're thinking. Why didn't I use Connect Professional for the meeting and luxuriate at home instead? Well in this case, the customer wanted a face to face and didn't have a external connection to t'internet from this particular office. I never said Connect Professional would replace all travelling now did I?
Having said that, the meeting went well and another customer now sees the value of using Connect as a delivery and management system for rapid eLearning content. I didn't even talk about live meetings online, just the delivery of Adobe Captivate and Adobe Presenter created eLearning content.
Just wait until I show them the live meeting rooms!
As usual, someone with a more eloquent turn of phrase than I have (Ted Padova) has written a darn good review of some new Acrobat 9 features. If I were you, I'd check out the following link
http://www.acrobatusers.com/tutorials/2008/06/teds_favorite_9_of_acrobat_9/?msglink=122
By the way, here's the man in question....
Thanks to Ted for all his work.
But don't think this great summary will prevent me from having my own occasional rant about a great Acrobat feature here and there, stay tuned dear reader, stay tuned to this channel.
Yeah, you thought I had forgotten right? WRONG!
Not only is Acrobat 9 here, but it's brilliant. Now you know I'm biased so you're not going to believe me and I understand that, but you and I have a contract, it's unwritten but it exists nevertheless and it's something like this... I won't lie to you here and in return, you'll take everything I say with a pinch of salt, but then find out more for yourself. Thats the deal, anyway, back to the product....
There is a plethora of both new and upgraded features to tempt and excite the long time user and the novice alike. I'll pick on just a few today, let's start with one of the big headlines, how Adobe has built the Flash runtime into Acromobat and the free Adobe Reader....
The free Flash player is already deployed on something like 98% of the worlds connected devices, so why bother putting the Flash runtime into Acrobat? Well, it's going to fundementally change how we perceive both PDF documents and the Acrobat application itself. Let's look inside a PDF first.
It's now possible to drop any flash content directly into a PDF. We can insert Flash video, sales dashboards, widgets, mini applications, anything. Documents become more engaging, interactive and even a secure window back to corporate data and systems.
It goes further because with the full Acrobat Pro Extended, I can drag and drop pretty much any media file, (mov, wmf etc...) into my Acrobat window, the media then gets converted to Flash on-the-fly and is compressed. I've now got my video content in a compressed ubiquitous formthat people can also add TIME STAMPED COMMENTS to.
More on that some other time....
Looking outside an individual document, we have a concept called the PDF Portfolio... I reckon the Portfolio is one of the coolest additions to Acrobat in years. Portfolios give you the ability to very easily create a collection of related files and documents - complete with their own Flash based interface. The Portfolio can be read by the free Adobe Reader 9.0. but is also backwards compatable, so Reader 8 and 7 can still see the content, but without the new user interface.
Creating a Portfolio is childs play, you can choose from among the existing portfolio templates, there will be about 12 styles to choose from and then choose the behaviour and presentation within the portfolio template (for example, you can opt for files to be organised on a bitmap, or to revolve around in a carousel / iTunes CoverFlow-like fashion) for the welcome screen.
Then you drag and drop what you want to be in this Portfolio into the container. Portfolios remain organic documents; you can add files and folders to an existing portfolio as needed. A Portfolio outputs as a .PDF document...... like this....
Looks nothing like an ordinary PDF, but it's a PDF, still conforming to international standards, just a way more engaging way to deliver multiple items of content.
Portfolios are great for presentating lots of content and ideas to people, think of bidding / RFQ's, Marketing plans, design reviews, planning proposals, any work that involves complex ideas supported by multiple pieces of content can now be delivered in a highly professional, engaging way.
Go take a look at www.adobe.com/acrobat and tell me you're not impressed. :-)
No gloating, but I couldn't let this pass...
Well done chaps!
Well, I work in the public sector, so this is good news!
although, I think they should focus on inexpensive quick wins rather than larger amorphous blob It projects... empower the desktop user I say!
Prime minister Gordon Brown today signalled that he would continue New Labour's strategy of using IT to improve public services.
Speaking today, Brown said he wanted the government to do even more with IT.
"“My aim too is to ensure we utilise all the innovation at our disposal to improve public services in this country, and to give more power to those who use them," he said.
Brown said the government was looking at:
- crime mapping,
- electronic school report cards,
- online school records,
- electronic whiteboards in schools,
- computer imaging to help explain diagnostic tests to NHS patients,
- video-identification of crime suspects.
Brown said he would also encourage investment in the UK technology industry with a continued "light touch" on regulation.
“I will do all I can to ensure we remain the investment and cultural destination of choice for the creative industries and the technological businesses of the world," he said.
Brown also announced today he will do an online version of prime minister's questions for the public.
...Cool, perhaps he should be looking at Connect professional!
Adobe Presenter 7 ! Now Available !
I use Adobe Presenter for taking my Powerpoint presentations and adding audio, navigation and quizes to turn them from information documents to training/knowledge transfer resources.... let's be honest, I'm not going to lie and say I create training material, that would be glamourising it somewhat, so let's call it knowledge transfer.
Anyway, if you are a corporate training professional wanting to have engaging flash training content created quickly, perhaps you're an educator wanting to provide on demand courseware for students, a marketing professional trying to create a high impact multimedia pitch for your offerings or a subject matter expert trying to create rapid training material, the new Adobe Presenter would make life a lot easier for you.
Adobe Presenter 7 has a number of new features and is available now. So, you are now able to create more engaging and impactful flash based multimedia content really easily and rapidly directly from Powerpoint. As ever, the key is still to make these features easy to use and well integrated into the Powerpoint interface.
Some of the key highlights of the new version are
Engaging, High Impact Training Creation:
Presenter 7 has smart multimedia capabilities like incorporating existing video in almost any format to your trainings as flash video and embedding video’s by capturing them directly out of your webcam.You can also create high quality content with Presenter 7 now supporting CD quality stereo audio and H.264video.
Quizzing has been enhanced significantly and quiz creation is now even easier, faster and more powerful. You can now have questions pooled together in groups and have a fixed number of questions selected randomly selected for each learner. The order of questions as well as answer options can be shuffled.
Wider Content Distribution
Creating engaging content for delivery to distributed audience is a key challenge that we have continued to address with Presenter 7. You are now be able to deliver content to mobile devices. You can also package your content as a PDF document with all the animations intact for easier distribution.
Increased Usability and Configurability
Presenter 7 is even easier to use with features to make your training content powerful and easy to create.
- Ability to restrict navigation for learners which is useful for compliance trainings.
- Easier incorporation of Captivate created swf’s with automatic updation of slide timings
- New format for storing audio (Y es, we have done away with PPC format)
- Bulk formatting of quiz questions for faster authoring
- Separate Quiz pane for easier navigation for the learners
- Fewer clicks for common tasks like slide management
- And a lot more …..
I have to mention this don't I.......
He's the Guv'nor
And these are the chaps!
I mean't to post this a while ago, sorry for tardiness. Hit this link to check out the list of winners in the recent Acrobat 3D PDF contest
http://www.acrobatusers.com/contests/?msglink=75
You can then download and explore some of the winning entries in the 3D gallery here....
http://www.acrobatusers.com/tech_corners/3d/3d_gallery/?msglink=77
I particularly like the “Heart Structure, Function and Arrhythmias” [PDF: 6.6 MB] publication, it took first place in the Technical Publishing category.
It allows users to interact with objects through various means, including rotation and frame sequencing to show three-dimensional movies.
Also check the 3D human body model... ewwww! Well done Christian Lietzau :-)
Well, what can I say, just look at his little face!!!!
Moscow here we come for an all English final!
Please excuse the 'Carry On' comedic title, just a quick reminder really.
I spoke today with someone using Acrobat but wondering how to convert a large number of existing documents, both PDF and Word into Accessible PDF. I believe he had almost got to the point of looking for some server based solution, when I reminded him of the batch processing commands in Acrobat professional.
Just look under
Advanced >> Documenbt Processing >> Batch Processing
Here you can easily create batch jobs that encapsulate many/all of the major commads that are available from the Acrobat menu system. Give it a try, it's ludicroulsly easy!
Oooh Matron!
eSeminar,
Extending LiveCycle Forms with JavaScript and FormCalc
If you use Adobe LiveCycle Designer, the Windows-only forms tool that comes with Acrobat 8 Professional and Acrobat 3D, you’ll want to log in to the second of our free, 75-minute Designer-related eSeminars — on April 16 (10 a.m. PDT) —
“Extending LiveCycle Forms with JavaScript and FormCalc.”
Thom Parker of Windjack Solutions will show how you can use JavaScript and FormCalc to extend the behavior of XML forms created in LiveCycle Designer. JavaScript enables automated forms handling, Web and database communication, commenting, additional user-interface capabilities and more.
This interactive session will cover:
• An introduction to the LiveCycle Designer scripting environment
• Practical script development, testing, and debug techniques
• Basic scripting examples in XML forms created with LiveCycle Designer
• Adding custom calculations
• Hiding and showing sections of a form
• Changing Form Field properties, such as border color
• Using check boxes, buttons, and combo boxes to control dynamic form features
Sorry for the lack of posts in the last couple of weeks, I was always adamant that this blog wouldn't wither and die just because no-one was reading it, I promised to keep writing this junk no matter what.
I've had a cold that knocked me back for the best part of a week! Now I know that none of the women reading this will give me an ounce, nay even a scintilla of sympathy on this one.... The phrase "Man Flu" will rear it's ugly head and I'll be thought of as some complaining work-shy malingerer. I do think chaps suffer from discrimination when it comes to illness in the workplace.... Still, 'twas my first illness this winter, I almost made the whole season without a cold.
Back at work, we were visited last week by my colleagues from San Jose and I was reminded about a great blog from my colleague Joel Geraci, his blog is called "PDF developer Junkie" and I reccommend a read, it's at..
http://blogs.adobe.com/pdfdevjunkie/
I can't deny, it was a good weekend....
Using Acrobat 8 to convert ordinary PDFs to forms
I'm regularly asked about creating forms using Acrobat 8. Now, I may have coivered this before, but I thought it might be worth a reminder...
Create your form
So, you can design a form in your favourite layout program (or any program, Word for example), turn it into a PDF, open it in Acrobat 8, and choose Forms > Run Form Field Recognition.
Acrobat looks through the document and searches for anything that looks like a form field (such as "Name: ___________") and adds the interactive form field logic on top of the underscore part. The form field name is derived from the text preceding the underscore ("Name" in this case) and is sized appropriately.
The form field is now ready to accept data as is. You can use the Form editing tools to do things like change its appearance, add actions, and so on.
Choosing the Run Form Field Recognition command not only creates the fields (in a couple of seconds), but it displays a "Recognition Report" that lists all the fields it detected -- each one linked to the actual field for easy selection -- and includes "Hints for Repair" that explains why some of your fields may not have been detected.
I would say that overall, this works for around 75-80 percent of fields on a form, but it varies. I've had forms that were 100% recognised and some that were only 50% recognised.
Share your form
Once completed, simply "Save As" the form and you can send it to your intended recipient. Don't forget, if your target audience uses the free Adobe Reader, you should also use the "Distribute Form" option..... This will allow Free Reader users to add digital signatures to the form and also perform a "Save As" directly from the Reader....
I'm pleased this feature is generating interest as I think it's a great way for people to gradually move from paper based forms work towards eForms without a massive upfront cost in terms of labour and software expense.
Oh yes, and as people have been reporting all over the place..
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Software maker Adobe Systems Inc. beat Wall Street's expectations in the first quarter with profits that rose 52 percent on continued demand for its design and Acrobat products. For the three months ended Feb. 29, Adobe posted a profit of $219.4 million, or 38 cents per share, according to an earnings report after the close of trading Tuesday.
A pretty good start to the year, the best part for me being the continued strength on the Acrobat business, yes, I'm a bit biased.
My colleague Steve Allison was quoted in the Financial Times yesterday in an article around the increased demand for distance learning (Connect anyone?) as corporates tighten their belts.....
Distance learning boosted by downturn – Financial Times, 17-03-08 PDF These are good times for distance learning. Steve Allison, a technical evangelist at Adobe, predicts significant changes in online learning. With employees increasingly mobile and working in remote locations, individuals will rely far more on e-learning. “With on-demand learning and instant access, the technology will allow you to push out all the information and it is then that you will get a change in the habit of learning,” he says. He says Adobe has found one of the biggest stumbling blocks in the acceptance of new technology is a traditional mentality, with older people reluctant to use the latest IT. To counter this, Adobe tries to ensure its products are easy to use.
Here's the link to the full article...
YES!
I'm back from the cold (averaging minus 25 degrees overnight, minus 9 during the day) I can reccomend Mont Tremblant in Quebec for anyone who like their skiing a bit on the cold side. That said, the snow was flipping awesome, we had a 16" dump overnight on one evening, as you can imagine, things were fluffy, then bumpy on the following day.
On the Acrobat news front, it is now possible to try Acrobat out for free in an online hosted version. This real-time TestDrive does not require product installation or download — it's the fastest way to try Acrobat 8 Professional. In just minutes you can start exploring Acrobat through your web browser on your own, or follow a series of video tutorials to experience some of the newest features.
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatpro/tryout.html?promoid=BONQG
Worth a look I'd say....
It's Monday afternoon and in around a day and a half I shall be off for my winter break attempting to ski. This year we are off to Mt Trembland in Eastern Canukistan (Canada).
I'm back in around 2 weeks so don't expect anything new, unless I fall, it rains etc. In which case I may get bored and post some pics.
Hmmmm, Acrobat trainers, now there's an idea for marketing to get their teeth into, I'd like some Adidas Superstar 2's please, with the Acrobat logo on.
Anyway, back in the real world, I'm referring to the time spent yesterday with our training partners, many of whom work with Acrobat. They spent a day with us at Stockley Park and I hope they enjoyed the news and product updates etc. It was really good to see some familiar faces.
Since there's not too much to cover that's new with Acrobat, I simply ran through some recent news, Leopard Support, the new Acrobat 3D update etc... I then looked at some new stuff on Adobe labs, in fact, I reckon you should have a look too...
BRIO
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/brio/
Built on Adobe's Flash platform, Brio operates inside most popular web browsers, so you can start a meeting without worrying if others have a compatible system or the right software.
Brio beta allows you to:
* Host unlimited online meetings with up to 3 meeting participants.
* Interact with easy-to-use screen sharing, chat and whiteboards.
* Access your meeting instantly with a personalized, easy-to-remember URL.
* Distribute documents and files to meeting participants.
* Use integrated VoIP, teleconferencing and multi-point video.
SHARE
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/share/
Preview Adobe’s latest online offering codenamed "Share", a free web-based service that allows you to easily share, publish and organize your documents.
With Share you can:
* Send documents without email attachments.
* Access your documents from anywhere.
* View all the documents you have shared or received in one place.
* Post a link to your document on a wiki or blog.
* Embed a Flash® preview of your document on any website.
* Limit access to a document to a list of recipients.
I'm using both technologies at the moment, let me know what you think.
Found this little gemon the wires over the weekend...
The Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) released the list as part of their 2007 Anti-Piracy Year In Review report.
Two lists were of note in the report - the 10 most frequently pirated by companies and the Top 10 most frequently pirated on the Internet. The lists are as below:
2007 Software Titles Most Frequently Pirated By Companies
1. Symantec Norton Anti-Virus
2. Adobe Acrobat
3. Symantec PC Anywhere
4. Adobe PhotoShop
5. Autodesk AutoCAD
6. Adobe DreamWeaver
7. Roxio Easy CD/DVD Creator
8. Roxio Toast Titanium
9. Ipswitch WS_FTP
10. Nero Ultra Edition
2007 Software Titles Most Frequently Pirated on the Internet
1. McAfee VirusScan
2. Symantec Norton Anti-Virus
3. McAfee Internet Security Suite
4. Intuit TurboTax
5. Adobe Photoshop
6. Adobe Acrobat
7. Intuit Quicken Home and Business
8. Symantec Norton pcAnywhere
9. Symantec Norton Ghost
10. Adobe Creative Suite
The SIIA have been busy trying to protect consumers as well as prod businesses into ensuring they buy legal copies of software.
“As we continued to aggressively pursue those who illegally sell or distribute pirated software and content, we also increased our educational outreach efforts in 2007,” said Keith Kupferschmid, SIIA SVP of Intellectual Property Policy and Enforcement. “By balancing enforcement with education, SIIA was able to crack down on illegal software sales and help consumers avoid purchasing pirated software. We also made strides in helping legal, public relations and other professionals effectively do their jobs within current copyright law.”
SIIA’s Corporate Anti-Piracy program has been in operation for 20 years but of all 2007’s 427 reports of alleged corporate end-user piracy, SIIA found only 17% sufficiently reliable to pursue. Productivity software is a favourite target for pirates, which shows there is demand.
I’m happy to announce that we have just posted the Acrobat 3D Version 8 Update.
This free update provides support for more recent versions of CAD file formats for Adobe Acrobat 3D and the 3D Toolkit. See the table below for details of the CAD formats and versions supported with this update.
Please link to www.adobe.com/go/a3d_update to download this update. Please share this link with anyone that can benefit from this update.
This download includes translator updates for the following CAD file formats:
CAD Format Supported Versions
Autodesk Inventor Up to 2008
I-deas Up to 13
JT Up to 8.2
NX (Unigraphics) Up to NX5
OneSpace Designer Up to 2007
SolidWorks Up to 2008
Now, some of my friends say I'm "cunning like a fox".... or was that "as smart as a cardboard box"? Well, whatever, I know you've been wondering how to get great content into your Acrobat PDF files.... let me help... I have collueagues who are significantly smarter than a cardboard box and they'd love to help.
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/captivate/articles/movieclip_to_pdf.html
That's a great link to an article from the deveoper centre, enjoy.
OK, So I was away in Rome taking my gorgeous wife away for Valentines day. What could make the weekend even better? "A new release of Acrobat" I hear you say?.... Did you not read the post title?
So, Manchester United beat Arsenal 4-0 yup, 4..... Nil..... in the FA Cup.
The BBc said....
"Wayne Rooney delivered a virtuoso solo display as Manchester United outclassed Arsenal in the FA Cup fifth round."
This is what it looked like...
Marvellous!
Sorry it's later than I expected
Adobe Acrobat 8.1.2 Professional update - multiple languages
The Adobe® Acrobat® 8.1.2 Professional update addresses several known issues in Acrobat 8 Professional software. Adobe recommends that all Acrobat 8 Professional users apply this update.
Improvements in Acrobat 8.1.2 Professional include the following:
• Improved Mac OS X v1.5 (Leopard) support
• Resolution of several PDF forms-related issues
• Additional stability improvements
This multilingual update can be applied to Brazilian Portuguese, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Italian, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish versions of Acrobat 8 Professional. For more information, see the technical document describing the Acrobat 8.1.2 update in the Support Knowledgebase.
Please check the link here....
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3856
Well? What have I been up to?
It's been a busy couple of weeks since I last posted and I'm sorry not to have kept on top of things, so lets work this one out in chronological order...
First I ran a seminar to a couple of architectural practises in the midlands. It's still good to see that people appreciate the power of Acrobat when it comes to capturing 3D and 2D drawings and models, then enabling those drawings to be shared for collaboration purposes. It's also still a bit of a shame that more people are not aware of this capability, I must try harder to evangelise on this area.
From there we went into trade show mode, to add to the 4 days at the BETT education conference in early January, I spent a couple of days at the eLearning Technology event at Olympia. This was a surprisingly busy event, the Adobe stand was typically 7-8 people deep, spilling out into the aisles.... I should apologise to our neighbouring stands for spoiling the traffic throughput to their areas....meh, maye not!
I was surprised with how many organisations are big Adobe Captivate and Adobe Presenter users. Check out this link for more information on Adobe presenter, it's the easiest way to take Powerpoint presentations and easily turn them into interactive eLearning content.
http://www.adobe.com/products/presenter/
Adobe Connect is then the simplest way to deliver this content to a widely dispersed audience and track their performance.
The FA Cup draw was cruel, giving man United a tough draw with Arsenal, no doubt the winner of that match looking lik the favourite for the cup!
From the eLearning show we went straight to a weekend kick-off for one of our resellers, where despite not having the biggest stand or the best Freebies, we were inundated by sales staff wanting to work out how to work with us more closely, nice one chaps. We made a load of great contacts, gave away a little software, and in the break, I discovered that I'm quite the Wii Tennis player on the sly.
Oh yes, the England lost to Wales, in a stunning display of shotgun-to-the-foot syndrome.....
What happened next? Oh yes, straight from there to New York for some training on Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional, it's a breeze to type that name (in-joke!) I'm now really getting to grips with the product and am going to end up as rabidly enthusiastic about it as I am Acrobat.
Walking to and from the training every day mean't I passed the scene of New York Fashion week, all I can comment on that is that I saw no models or paparazzi in the mornings, clearly this is an afternoon/evening type of job, one that my chisled/wisened/haggard good looks could handle at a canter. If only Adobe didn't need me so badly, oh well, maybe next life.
So it was back to blighty (thanks Silverjet) for a bit of jetlag and the Manchester derby, remembering 50 years ago how the Munich air disaster tragically ripped the heart out of the Busby babes. Sadly, City beat a lacklustre United side 2-1.........
I'm now planning for a team meeting this week and am about to start following up on all the leads and contacts that were generated by the mad rush at the end of January. I may have to buy a phone headset and go dialling for dollars.
A nice littlepiece on Acrobat 3D that I missed until today....
Open Marketplace: Adobe technology makes MFG.com an easier place to buy, sell goods
In Manufacturing Business Technology, Malcolm Wheatley writes: “MFG.com ... recently completed a major revamp of its platform, leveraging technology from Adobe Systems. “MFG.com made Adobe Acrobat 3D its standard tool for viewing CAD data, allowing buyers and sellers to freely exchange 2D and 3D geometry together with manufacturing information. Standardizing on Adobe Acrobat 3D eliminated concerns about protecting intellectual property as it travels across the global network.”
Here's the link for the full article
http://www.mbtmag.com/article/CA6521847.html?industryid=47314
Yup, surprisingly good indeed, when I last wrote at the BETT show, I was halfway through the event and finishing a presentation I was planning to deliver a few times on the last two days of the event. Well, I was plesantly surprised by the reaction to it, I was talking about how Acrobat can be used for the production and maintenance of Student ePortfolios.
These are significantly different from a showcase type of portfolio, since we need to cater for transactional data, potentially collect all student work, archive for long periods and allow for refection and feedback whilst providing the right level of access security and rights control. Truly a living breathing document.... and of course, all easily achievable with Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional.
So, I had lots of interested education professionals listening and a host of questions after, a couple of invitations to visit and re-present the presentation (including one from the US). Tell you what, I'm happy. So if anyone out there wants to know what I think on the subject, drop me a comment.....
In other great news, Man United did a bit of a demolition job on Newcastle, let's hope the return of King Kevin helps them out a bit.... I believe he "would love it" if he could beat us... Keep trying Kev, keep trying.
Thanks to my colleague Jim Merry who reminds us that the deadline to submit entries for the Adobe Acrobat 3D PDF Contest is approaching. It is extremely easy to enter, you don't even need to own a copy of Acrobat 3D, and you can win tasty prizes like...
Super prizes like an iPhone, a Dell Laptop, a 3D mouse, or a free copy of Acrobat 3D! At a minimum, all you need to do is convert a CAD file you already have to PDF and submit via our website. You can find the details for the contest here....
So, we are 2 days into the BETT Education conference/exhibition at Olympia in London. 50% done, 50% to go and it's been a good event thus far.
Lots of interest from many different parties in the use of Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Connect. Acrobat seems to be of interest rigt at the moment with respect to it's use in electronic student portfolios (ePortfolios). These living, changing documents allow students to build up a varied body of their work, use this for assessment, peer review and as a record of their development.
The way forward for eportfolios is unclear at the moment, the web often being touted as a panacea. No standards exist yet in this area and until ones emerge, perhaps it's best to think of using an information capture format that's managed by ISO (see below).... supports electronic documents, paper documents, multimedia, full commenting and review and runs well on around 90% of the worlds desktops.....with a high level ofcontent security...... I wonder.......
Tootleoo
Steve
At a recent meeting, the International Organization for Standardisation (ISO) voted to approve Adobe’s PDF as an international document format standard. The vote was passed with 13-to-one in favour and PDF is set to become the ISO 32000 Standard. As a result, Adobe will no longer have sole control over what is already the de facto standard for sharing, editing and commenting on documents between multiple platforms. ‘Adobe will be just one of many implementers of that standard. Adobe expects to participate on the ISO committees determining changes that should be included in a revised standard,’ said James King, a senior principle scientist and PDF architect at Adobe.
I'm just pleased ISO have given PDF an easy to remember standard number ISO32000 rolls off the tongue!
As a follow up to my previous post, I should point you towards the redesigned Acrobat 3D section of the new Adobe website.... The entire Adobe website has undergone a significant overhaul including the Acrobat 3D section. In addition to rearranging the navigation tools and existing content to make it easier to find the information and resources from the old site, there's a lot more content available.
Here are some useful direct links
Acrobat 3D Product Page
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat3d/
Acrobat 3D 'Evaluation Center'
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat3d/evaluation/index.html
The first area to check out is the new Acrobat 3D 'Evaluation Center' where you will find demos, presentations, archived online seminars and an Interactive Simulator' (A3D-IS).
Acrobat 3D Online Discussion Forum
http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx/.3bbe2554/
There are lots of different online forums and user groups that enable you to talk with other people interested in Acrobat 3D. There is an Adobe Forum for Acrobat 3D as well as an Acrobat Online User Group that has multiple forums including one devoted to 3D.
Sample 3D PDFs
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat3d/3dpdf_samples/
I'm often asked if there are sample PDFs with 3D content available for download. You will find over 20 PDF files here that with examples of 3D content from the automotive, aerospace, machinery, eletronics, architecture, engineering and construction industries and some that have examples of technical publications with 3D interactive content.
Free 30 Day Trial
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat3d/tryout.html
If you would like to try Acrobat 3D, you can download a 30 day free trial here.
Well, this isn't going to be the only entry for 2008 but I thought I'd state the obvious. Happy new year to anyone reading this, I hope you had a great Christmas break and enjoyed a thoroughly good New Year.
So, for 2008 I'm focussing much more on UK Government than in the past, this should give me the chance to get deeper under the skin of our customers and understand their needs much better.
i think 2008 is going to be a great year for Acrobat too, we have started with a nice new case study on Acrobat 3D where Porkka Finland, a Commercial Refrigeration Provider are streamlining their Design Review Process with Acrobat 3D.
Porkka Finland provides hotels, restaurants, and medical laboratories worldwide with refrigeration and cooling systems, customized to accommodate each customer’s engineering, environmental, and regulatory requirements. Key to successful design and delivery is the ability to quickly exchange detailed design documents with customers, installation specialists, and suppliers, but this can be difficult, as few people outside the company own the costly CAD or other applications required to view the native files. With Acrobat 3D, Porkka is able to convert design documents to platform and application-independent Portable Document Format (PDF) files. The resulting files are up to 95% smaller than native application files and provide more interactivity, such as enabling reviewers to add digital comments. Now the company’s collaboration processes have been accelerated by as much as 75% and time spent transmitting files has decreased significantly.
Get in! Nice one chaps
Adobe wins backing for PDF 1.7
Adobe has received backing for the next version of the PDF document format, following an overwhelming vote by the ISO standards panel. The decision means that PDF 1.7 will now become the ISO 32000 Standard.
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2205065/pdf-takes-first-step-towards
I'm pleased since this will stop people telling me that PDF is a nasty, proprietary piece of work. :-)
As the planning gets into top gear for 2008, I'm pleased to be spending some more time working with Acrobat Connect Professional. I've normally been using it for live meetings where we can pull together people from around the globe into my virtual room and share resources, whiteboard, see each other and collaborate, no matter what hardware/software platforms everyone has.
However, the live meeting is probably not Acrobat Connect's most powerful use. It's a massively powerful tool for the delivery of e-learning, like the presentation voiceovers I've been delivering for the Adobe Academy recently (see old blog entries)
I noticed today that Royal Phillips have just adopted Acorbat Connect for the same reason....
Royal Philips Electronics has deployed Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional software to provide 135,000 registered users of its Healthcare Learning Management System with synchronous training, video conferencing and Web seminar clinical and technical programs.
The company has seen Acrobat Connect Professional enhance the training experience, while at the same time complement the onsite training held at customer locations in more than 100 countries and Philips Global Training Centers in Europe, Asia and North America.
Royal Philips Electronics develops over 100 training modules annually, many of which employ synchronous elements. The ability to archive seminars will make these synchronous elements available to people unable to attend the live sessions and provide supplemental refresher training as well.
"The use of Acrobat Connect Professional supports our goal of simplifying healthcare for our customers and partners, as well as enhancing training opportunities for global marketing, sales and distribution teams," said Douglas Dell, Global Director of Learning Services for Philips Medical Systems, a division of Royal Philips Electronics.
"It also supports our overall strategy of enhancing the customer experience through the lifespan of system ownership. With Acrobat Connect Professional, our Learning Services business can offer quality, interactive e-learning programs to the users of our advanced medical equipment and help ensure better patient care management," added Dell.
Royal Philips Electronics seamlessly integrated Acrobat Connect Professional software into its in-house SCORM-compliant Learning Management System. Incorporating synchronous elements into its specialized healthcare education programs enables the organization to more securely deliver training programs globally without limitations of connecting through firewalls or requiring software downloads, which represent an obstacle for many healthcare institutions. The Adobe Flash Player software makes it easy for users, content authors and technical staff to use.
....See?
I know a little of what Thanksgiving's all about, but being back in Blighty, the only thing I notice is a distict lack of emails from my colleagues in the US. I hope you've all had a good time over the last few days. I believe also that last friday signalled the start of the Christmas shopping season.
I'll be over in San Jose shortly for our kick-off event, but forst we have to finish off the financial year. I'm talking with customers in every vertical market sctor you could think of, Financial, Government, Manufacturing, Marketing, everyone really. Most unusually, I was trying to get 3D models from the Lego modeller application captured into Acrobat 3D. I almost succeeded too.
On the product side, there's also a great link from the Acrobat user community, our friend/guru Ted Padova has taken to the next level his generosity for freely sharing with the user community his wealth of product expertise. In addition to routinely dispensing nuggets of PDF-oriented knowledge via his blog, he's now put together a compilation of "101 of my favorite tips and frequently used tasks in Acrobat, JavaScript and LiveCycle Designer" in eBook format, and is offering it as a free download.
http://www.acrobatusers.com/articles/2007/11/101_forms_etips_article/
Thanks Ted! Now that takes me back to Craggy Island in the 90's
Well, that's what we are, Englands first 11 are up to the job, but with 8 men unavailable, it showed just how poor our replacement players are.... Oh yes, and the manager's useless..... excuse me while I go lie down somewhere.
Poor Scotty Carson.....
This picture is called "losers" can you guess why children?
Again, I feel compelled to start this blog entry with an apology, a week has gone by without a sniff of an entry and I feel I must respond to the literally zero emails that have come my way asking for more info from me....... (tumbleweed)
So, well, it's still end of year type busy, so my time is spent with lots and lots of how to's and quick questions from our sales team and partners/resellers.
I've added my profile to the Acrobat User Community, if you're a user of Adobe Acrobat, I highly reccomend joining this site. It's a great place to gather information on Acrobat and get best advice, not only from Adobe chaps and women, but from real, honest-to-goodness people using the product.
www.acrobatusers.com
Well, this is the second time today I've typed this blog entry, don't you just love it when your browser software does the unexpected and just switches itself off? I know I do, it cetrainly doesn't frustrate and annoy to the point where you want to turn your laptop into a frisbee and send it clear across the office..... nope, not at all, it's a breeze really.
I was prompted to pop an entry in because I had noticed that it had been a whole week since I'd posted and I always said I'd not do the standard blogging thing of posting heavily for a few weeks then getting distracted by a passing buterfly and fogetting where I lived.
Sooooo, I saw a nice post in another Blog today, so I thought I'd share....
http://www.chatbugkaren.com/windingthreads/2007/11/06/i-love-adobe-acrobat/
It's a nice antidote to the normal office/enterprise type of comments and emails I get.
November 30th is the end of our financial year at Adobe, so as you can imagine, November gets pretty busy and always manages to surprise. Yesterday for example, I was asked if Acrobat could add watermarks to existing documents and indeed it can, it's one of those features I don't demonstrate these days but is really usefull for lots of people.
Checkout the Document > Watermark menu options. You can add watermarks in differing fonts, from text files, with many display options including orientation and opacity. You can decide if the watermark is shown on-screen and/or in print etc. Well worth exploring if you distribute information of differing security or sensitivity levels regularly.
In case I didn't mention it before, we also had a great event last week, the Adobe Business Exchange, held in Gloucester st. London. The event was primarily aimed at people using Adobe's LiveCycle range of business transformation products, but as always, most people there used Acrobat too, so I was kept very busy answering questions and explaining the relationship between Acrobat, Connect and LiveCycle.
Wow, I was a little surprised about the response from my last post. I had no idea people actually read this Blog... Way to go readers, give yourselves a pat on the back from me!
So, just a quickkie today about using the split screen facility. By using the screen-splitting commands in Acrobat you can view large documents, including drawings and spreadsheets, more easily on screen than you can on paper.
The commands in the Window menu (shown below) give you the ability to view a PDF with the document pane divided into two (Split command) or four panes (Spreadsheet Split command).
Split Commands
In Split view, each window operates independently. In Spreadsheet Split, the windows are coordinated so you can keep column or row headings visible while you scroll through a large table or spreadsheet.
To end Split or Spreadsheet Split view, choose Window > Remove Split.
Split view
With Split view, you can view a single document in two windows. You can scroll, change the magnification level, or turn to a different page in the active window without affecting the other, as shown below.
Split View
In Split view, click a pane to make it active. You can navigate to a new page or to a new zoom setting and the other window will remain in place. Drag the gray splitter bar to resize the windows.
So this makes it easy now to view two seperate sections of a document together on a single screen, maybe a network diagram and the detail page of the hardware components making up that network.... Back in the paper world, you would constantly be turning from one page to another to match part numbers and descriptions with the diagram. By using the Split command in Acrobat, you can view both pages in the same document pane.
Spreadsheet Split
The Spreadsheet Split view is useful if you want to keep column headings and row labels visible while scrolling through a large spreadsheet, chart or table. In this mode, changing the magnification in one pane changes the magnification in all panes.
Scrolling is coordinated between the panes: scrolling a pane horizontally also scrolls the pane above or below it; scrolling vertically also scrolls the pane to the left or right of that pane.
Late last week, Apple announced the release of Apple OSX Leopard for its computers. Nice, I've had a look and must get myself a copy. It was also nice to watch the guided tour and see that the first thing they did was to view and download a PDF document, well done Apple, kudos to you.
On that subject, Adobe has moved quickly to make sure our products work on this cool new operating system. Thanks to close collaboration between Adobe and Apple, most of the Creative Suite 3 (CS3) applications and associated technologies, such as Adobe Bridge CS3, Version Cue CS3, and Device Central CS3, are compatible with Mac OS X Leopard without requiring additional updates.
However, the following CS3 applications will require updates for full compatibility with Leopard: Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional and our professional video applications, including Adobe Premiere Pro CS3, After Effects CS3 Professional, Encore CS3, and Soundbooth CS3.
We expect to publish free Leopard compatibility updates for the video applications in December 2007 and for Acrobat 8 Professional and Adobe Reader 8 in January 2008.
For more information, take a look at the FAQ we have produced, it can be found here.....
http://www.adobe.com/go/leopardfaq
Hope this helps.....
Steve
FYI my little chums, there has been an update released for Acrobat. It addresses recent vulnerabilities that have been identified in Adobe Reader and Acrobat that could allow an attacker who successfully exploits these vulnerabilities to take control of the affected system.
This issue only affects customers on Windows XP with Internet Explorer 7 installed. A malicious file must be loaded in Adobe Reader or Acrobat by the end user for an attacker to exploit these vulnerabilities. It is recommended that affected users update to Adobe Reader 8.1.1 or Acrobat 8.1.1.
Read more about this here....
http://www.adobe.com/support/security/bulletins/apsb07-18.html
Bugger!!
Oh well, they probably just about deserved to win, well done the Boks!
Time for bed I think!
Just a quickkie, for those in Paris looking for tickets, there is still hope...
It seems that for some reason, some Kiwis have tickets available.......
HERE WE GO THEN
Phil Vickery, "Raging Bull" looking pretty focused, I just wish he was still at Gloucester. Anyway, 9 hours to go and the nerves have already set in.
The upside is that England go into the World Cup Final (for my American friends, this is like a World Series, but we invite teams from other countries to take part.... hence the "World" element) ... as underdogs, I know the team don't like to hear that, but it's true. If we lose I'll be gutted, but only 4 weeks ago, we were being touted as the wost defenders of the Webb Ellis trophy ever, so to reach the Final is pretty special.
Kudos to my colleagues who are making the trip to Paris, I'll be back in Blighty feeling a tad jealous, I see you were sung off from Waterloo station this morning....
COME ON ENGLAND
I don't care if we play 80 minutes of "stick it up yer jumper" rugby.
Right, off for a lie down in a darkened room with a wet flanel on my forehead.
Well, I have to apologise, I haven't updated in a few days (four I think)..
So this week seems to have been about articulating the differences between the full-on "Gold Standard" (Not my words, but a quote from a US based computer magazine) Adobe Acrobat and other PDF creation software. Now there are lots and lots of blogs and websites that will point out the deficincies of some other products in relation to Acrobat, so I won't labout those points here, but it made for a busy week. The main thing I see is that these 'clone' products seem to come and go over a period of time, whereas Adobe and Acrobat keeps on enduring.
If you want to read up a little more on Acrobat I would suggest you head over to the rest of....
blogs.adobe.com
Of special note at the moment is the new Acrobat 3D contest......
http://www.adobeukacademy.com/
To be honest, I didn't realise how hard it would be to spend 5-6 hours recording my voice talking constantly. I know my friends might disagree with that last statement. What I have found out is that my voice is "ordinary".... yup "ordinary". I have to say, that deflated my ego a tad. I always hoped I might have a distictive style, a poor mans James Earl Jones, but nope, it seems that I might have middle England sewn up though.
I was talking last week about security to a number of people. We talked about the "Save as certified" option, which is an easy way to add a digital certificate to a document, kind of like a wax seal.
Later, on the drive home, I considered how most information leakage occurrs by accident rather than malicious design. So, it put me in mind of another conversation I'd had a few months ago regarding using watermarks to very clearly display if something was "Company Confidential" or "Internal use only". This is an easy way to help prevent the unintentional distribution of sensitive material.
You can give your PDF documents a watermark very easily...
1. Open a PDF and go to Document > Watermark > Add
2. For the Source, you can either type in text or use an image. If you use an image, choose
(After choosing your image you’ll see a preview of your PDF with the watermark)
3. To improve the document readability with regards the watermark’s appearance, you can change the Opacity down to 30% and for the Location of the watermark choose
4. You can also adjust where the watermark appears on the page in the Position section.
5. Click
This gives you a document that can clearly state it's usability status.
You also have the option to make the watermark visible only in print rather than on screen too.
Well, it's the morning after the night before and it's Sunday so I don't feel I must talk about Acrobat too much...
I tell you what, It's good to watch England celebrate for a change.
And in related news, my club Rugby side, Gloucester, won again yesterday against Sale beating them 31-12 to continue their 100% start to the season!
More Acrobat stuff next week I think.
It's friday and I've been looking for ways to avoid thinking about the upcomming Rugby World Cup semi-final between France and the Mighty England (like the use of capitals there?)
In the exciting world of electronic forms, I've been looking at the Tracker in Acrobat.... The Forms Tracker is a panel of the same window in which you track PDF reviews and subscriptions.... it also had a neat RSS reader too....
Did you know that? You get an RSS reader in Acrobat, go take a look, it will probably be sitting there on your system tray..... anyway...
There are several ways to open the Forms Tracker:
1. Choose Forms > Track Forms.
2. In the Tasks toolbar, choose Track Forms from the Forms button pop-up menu.
In the Review Tracker window (opened by choosing Comments > Review Tracker), click the Forms Tracker button on the left side of the window.
Four buttons appear on the left side of the Forms Tracker. Each one opens a different panel when clicked: To Do, History, Search Results, and Forms Library. These panels can remind you of the status of various forms that are part of your workflow and make it easy to find and reopen those forms.
You add a form to the Forms Library panel during the forms-distribution process. At the end of the Distribute Form wizard, a message appears, stating that the form has been sent to your default email application. This message also includes an Add To My Form Library option.
This means you can actually track and manage the electronic forms you are using, not real workflow, but almost. All this in the standard application that you bought for making PDF's from your MS Word documents..... don't worry, you can thank me later.
and by the way.... COME ON ENGLAND!
Well, the Diocese Communicators Conference went well, I think. Response to the "Acrobat 101" and "Acrobat 201" was really positive, I owe an apology to the delegates for running over a little and holding up their coach taking them to dinner... I do get a little over enthusiastic sometimes.
When I present to people in the UK, I often describe my role as BDM as being an evangelist for Acrobat, it felt strange using that phrase yesterday for some reason. By the way, the title for todays Blog, a direct quote from yesterdays sessions, when I showed how easy it is to create a PDF form that is fillable by the free Adobe Reader and can be saved by said reader, the delegates were blown away.... I love this product!
Today (in around 30 minutes) I'm off to this year’s conference for the Communication Directors of the Church of England to run a couple of Acrobat seminars. This will be interesting for me as I normally look to similar events I've done in similar "comapnies"....
Checking back, I haven't run similar events for the Catholic Church, the Baptists, Jewish Community, Muslims, Bhuddists, etc... There's a good chance I'll learn more today than imarting knowledge, but we'll see. (apologies to any major religion I omitted in that list)
As time progresses towards end of year, all sales organisations go into overdrive, I'll try and keep up to date on any new stuff that comes along.
Speaking of which........ On Oct. 5, Adobe posted information on its Security Bulletins and Advisories page about the recently reported vulnerability in Adobe Reader and Acrobat for Windows. The full statement is available at: http://www.adobe.com/support/security/advisories/apsa07-04.html
Having now researched and verified the vulnerability, Adobe expects to provide before the end of October an update to versions 8.1 of Adobe Reader and Acrobat that will resolve the issue. A security bulletin will be published on the company's Security Bulletins and Advisories page http://www.adobe.com/support/security/ at which point the update is available. In the meantime, Adobe is also making available information about a workaround users can implement to protect themselves from the vulnerability. And, as always, Adobe recommends users exercise skepticism and caution when in receipt of unsolicited e-mail communications requesting user action, such as opening attachments or clicking web links.
It's always good to see good manners and good winners. I know the Australians always are magnanamous in defeat and victory, never crowing about beating the Pommies or calling us cocky etc. So it's great to see the teams shaking hands at the end of the game wether you were the winner or the loser.
It must be quite a long flight back to Australia I guess?
I'm not carping, honest I'm not but blimey, does this feel good??!!
Now, if you'll excuse me, I may have to get my self around the outside of a beer.
In an entry guaranteed to show off both y age and my dorkiness, I thoroughly enjoyed watching Thomas Dolby at the Concorde2 in Brighton last night. It's the first time I've seen him live and I'm not sure why I waited 25 years to do so. D'Oh!
We have reached the time of year when people want to start planning for the next one, at the same time as we are also running around trying to put the current year to bed. Seems like I'm planning Christmas, Easter and the next Summer holiday all at the same time! Luckily, I'm only talking about work which is much easier to deal with.
Spent a couple of days this week starting the planning process for 2008 for Acrobat. I'm looking forward to geting in front of as many people as possible again next year, but am also hoping to spend a bit more time presenting virtually. My coleagues think i'm only just virtually presenting as it is but I hope to use Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional (mouthful!) to run a lot more eSeminars, training and other events. I'll try to keep you posted from here.
I took a day to record some voiceovers for our training academy, I'll be the voice of the training modules for Acrobat and maybe some other products, apologies if you're having to sit through them. I'll try to make the next few a little less dry and a little more entertaining. I do hope they sound OK, maybe a carreer in radio commercials is beckoning?
TIME FOR AN ACROBAT TIP!!!!
Well, I haven't included one for ages. Acrobat s a great tool for archiving information, as we know, the resultant PDF file can be searched on content.. So much better than some other formats people use. So, a quick tip if you create and share large PDF files, ones with lots of pages. You can embed the search index and it will make subsequent searching much faster.....
Steps
1. Use the Advanced > Document Processing > Manage Embedded Index ..... Menu option
2. Acrobat will then create and embed a search index
3. Anyone can now search this PDF more quickly, choose Edit > Search
Yeah, it's the old ego thing again, I was just sent a picture of the TCT event and o thought... well, since I'm here in a hotel room in Paris with no-one to talk to, what better that to share stuff with all 4 of my regular readers?
This is part of our TCT stand...
Look at me presenting! Checkout the eyes, I'm evil I tells ya, evil!!!
I also meant to add that we spent some time oposite the Leica stand. They have a range of 3D spatial scanning tools, creating point cloud scans of objects and locations. How neat would that be to capture their scanning in an Acrobat document......
I have some holes and gaps but hey, it's me!! Does my ego know no bounds?
Well, it seems like I've not been in for a week. I've not been skivving off.... now there's a thought. Anyway, we've had a busy week.
First of all, time was well spent preparing for the TCT show, what's TCT? Time Compression Technologies..... yes, I've been working on our DeLorean for some 'Back to the Future' type antics. Alternatively, I may have been preparing 14 laptops for a Manufacturing show based around he premise of reducing the design to production process.... compressing the time taken to get products to market, using new technologies.
That was a mouthfull.
So, TCT turned out to be a great show based at the Ricoh arena, home to Coventry City FC. Now I'll be honest, as a Manchester United fan, Coventry City was the last place I needed to be on Wednesday and Thursday last week as Coventry City beat my beloved Man U 2-0 in the Carling Cup.
Delegates were surprised to see how Acrobat 3D Version 8 was able to capture a 3D model including it's 100% accurate model geometry from arund 35 different native CAD systems.
Those models can then be commented upon, redlined, exported to IGES, Parasolid, STEP, and VRML, nice vanilla formats that allow for a multitude of other uses.
Just returned from a really bustling 2 day conference in Dublin organised by AIIM called, Info Ireland. More on the conference tomorrow, but I must recommend "Shanahans on the Green", an upscale restaurant that serves the best steak I think I've ever eaten.
Oh yes, Acrobat nd the like, well, I'll update you on how the event went in the morning, I'm bushed just now...... Well sufice to say, I was surprised about the number of people expressing an interest in Acrobat 3D. It seems it has taken a while for the real capabilities of the product to be picked up upon by people but it's starting to become a regular feature of our events.
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat3d/
Take a look for yourself....
For my Linix using friends, both of them, I'm late with the news but we have released an update for the Adobe Reader on Linux and SPARC Solaris.
Adobe Reader 8.1.1 for Solaris and Linux brings the UI up to date, has improved performance, single document interface mode, and an always-available search toolbar. Other new features include supporting multimedia-enabled PDF documents, new tools, updated review tracker, Orca accessibility support, and enhanced digital ID security.
To be honest, there's a whole lot of other stuff that's new, but my Linux skills are not up to scratch, so I'll point you to a colleagues blog if that's OK with you...
http://blogs.adobe.com/acroread/2007/09/adobe_reader_811_on_linux_and.html
Well, I'm going to get back to my own suffering after England capitulated to a powerful and well organised South African Springboks side last night..... well, I did always prefer tiddlywinks to Rugby anyay....
In between a Jaffa Cake breakfast and clearing my overnight emails, I was pointed towards a short article in MacWorld. Worth a read, if only to remind yourself that things like Rubylith and PageMill....
http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/09/11/adobe25/index.php
And yes, I ate 3, I've been in the office for an hour the office and it's 07:34..... time to get a life, Stevie boy!
OK, so this isn't strictly an Acrobat entry but I haven't spoken to you in a couple of days and I worry that you might think I don't love you any more....
So, just a fun kind of iPhone simulator. It can run as a browser and rotate just like an iPhone, you can even zoom in, like the pinch effect (just hold down the space bar and then click and drag diagonally). It might be a nice demo application particularly until the iPhone is released over here. You are not tied to any contract, it’s totally free and quite fun.
....and just so you know, I do love you, in a platonic, not naughty way.
Oh yes, and finally, for those people who have asked me what kind of woman would want to marry me.... well, it's this kind.....
Ain't she gorgeous.
To all PDF developers, and I know you're out there....
The PDF Developer Junkie blog has been re-launched, with new content. The blog provides resources for Acrobat developers and IT professionals working with PDF, sharing best practices, tricks and tips and seminars on demand.
http://blogs.adobe.com/pdfdevjunkie/
Peruse the blog, go on.... I won't tell your so called "cool" friends you looked....... :-)
Steve
Hiya,
well, I'm back with my feet under my desk and I have returned to evangelist mode, so please excuse me the following 2 links. Both url's take you to reviews on Amazon of some competitive software to Acrobat 8. I will not add any other comments here, just take a look for yourself........
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nuance-PDF-Create-4-PC/dp/B000HZSZYG/ref=sr_1_8/203-6065596-2104736?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1188982031&sr=1-8
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nuance-PDF-Converter-Professional-PC/dp/B000HZUPK8/ref=sr_1_6/203-6065596-2104736?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1188982031&sr=1-6
Well, I feel bad about the title, I'm not really going to talk about new things in Acrobat 8, I was just feeling guilty because I'm back at work and feel the need to evangelise!!
So, I would like to point you, dear reader to a very good Blog written by a friend of ours call Ted Padova. Ted is the author of numerous books on Acrobat, Photoshop, Illustrator and the Adobe Creative Suite, and an international speaker on Adobe Acrobat, Ted Padova is a well-known PDF guru.
http://www.acrobatusers.com/blogs/tedpadova/
Ted is not an Adobe employee and as a result walks around with a big happy smile on his face? Want to see? Check the url above for the proof!
Perhaps it's married life that has brought on this case of work related guilt. I'm keen to work hard, show my value and earn enough to feed my wife's shoe habit.... am I kidding? Well I've already started taking orders from her for an upcoming trip to the US, it looks like I'll be spending a lot of time in Macy's.
Hiya all, just a quick entry to say I'm back from my Wedding and Honeymoon. I have to say, after 3 weeks in the Maldives, I'm having trouble with shoes and socks, let alone business, Acrobat, customers, sales numbers etc.
So, I'll start by trawling through the email I've missed over the past 3 weeks and I'll get back to you later.
OK first of all I confess, I'm less preoccupied with Acrobat than normal, it's 3 days until me wedding so I'm cutting myself some slack on that one.
Still, I'm not completely off the job yet, so here's something I showed yesterday to a major Pharaceutical company (did I spell Pharamaceutical right?)
They use AutoCad to create their packaging designs and want to share them, PFD/Acrobat/Reader is the preferred delivery mechanism for information (clever fellows), so what to do with those pesky DWG files. No-one wants to learn another application... (whisper DWF viewer), so Acrobat 8 made this task a whole lot easier.....
In Acrobat 7 we gave you the ability to work from your AutoCAD environment and save as a PFD. But to get that AutoCAD drawing into a PDF without having AutoCAD on your machine? No problem, with Acrobat 8 Professional it is a simple drag and drop.
1. Open Acrobat 8 Professional
2. Select your DWG file
3. Drag and Drop it into the Acrobat window
4. Save as...
Or, for the truly lazy amongst us......
1. Right click on the DWG file
2. Select the "Convert to Adobe PDF" option
3. Share the file with anyone using the free Adobe Reader, communicate, collaborate in confidence
4. Sit back and feel smug
Anyway, back to the impending nuptuals, the expediture is reay under control, having said that, I have considered selling one of my Kidneys on eBay........ This does sem like a lot of hard work just to get a holiday in the Maldives.
I'm working with a couple of companies in the Legal sector right now and coincidentally a friendly post over at "The Connected Lawyer", covering Redaction, Combining files, Bates numbering and others, worth a read.....
http://www.theconnectedlawyer.com/archives/116
All I will say is, first trophy of the year to the Red Devils......
Well, if it wasn't always clear enough, I'm officially ACE!!
It's nice to be ratified by an official body. I've passed my Adobe ACE exam, so now I'm an certified Expert in Acrobat. I passed with 86% which I think means that when I tell you things about Acrobat, nearly nine times out of ten, I'm telling the truth....
More importantly, I can now wear my "Acrobat Guru" polo shirt without feeling like a charlatan and a fraud. Now all I need is to be invited to a slightly geeky party........
Has summer arrived finally in England? Well, it's warm andvaguely sunny so I guess that must be it, let's hope it lasts for more than 3 days.
Just a quick link, Jonathan Ferman, Adobe UK's Creative Publishing guru, has now returned from honeymoon and (all dewey eyed in love) spotted this useful free application....
If during a demo you want to zoom in on part of your screen it’s easy on a Mac (Just hold down the CTRL key and use the scroll ball or Trackpad), but on Windows you need a utility, here’s one I found that is free. You may find better but hopefully this will be a good start:
Virtual Magnifying Glass 3.3
A free, open source, screen magnifier, for Windows, Linux and FreeBSD.
http://magnifier.sourceforge.net/
So today I'm popping over to a customer who are currently using Acrobat 7 professional to distribute artwork to their internal customers for collaboration and authorisation prior to going to print. We created a nice case study here....
http://www.adobe.com/de/solutions/de/pdfs/European_Customer_References.pdf
I forget which page, sorry. So anyway they are looking to upgrade to Acrobat 8 and we'll see what we can do to help them.
In other news, our wedding preparations have now reached the point where the bank card is in terminal meltdown, the upcomming honeymoon is looking increasingly welcome.
So, in 2 weeks I'll be getting married. The plans have been well contained thus far, but now I am entering the zone where I'm advised to simply open my wallet and turn my head away from the carnage. Just how much can Bridesmaids shoes cost anyway, I've seen them and, for the money I've spent, I'd expected them to include lasers or at least a mini TV! When I was a child, I wore Clarks Commando's and they had a built in Compass!
I'm running my usual ask the expert session again this morning at 10:00, so that will take my mind off things. I'll also be preparing to ake my Adobe Acrobat ACE exam next week, I should have completed it ages ago but work has kept me away from the testing centre.... that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. I'll be glad to take the test and pass because then I can wear my "Acrobat Guru" T-shirt without feeling like a fraud.... I'm not saying I'll wear it a lot, it's just the principle.
I've just finished reading a review on Acrobat 3D Version 8 on AECbytes. It reads really well and is nicely balanced, so if you want to find out more but don't trust me to tell you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, check this review out...
http://www.aecbytes.com/review/2007/Acrobat3Dv8.html
In other news, the UK team had a team building exercise at a blustery Northwick Park yesterday afternoon. I've clearly learned that I'm now good enough at golf to truly understand how bad I am at golf.... I think I'll stick to cribbage, anyone want to buy some slightly used Callaways?
I've mentioned before that I do a large number of presenations using Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional. I have also used the Adobe Presenter to turn some of my static Powerpoint presentations into interactive, voiced-over presentations with Q and A built in.
Something I've been meaning to learn about is Adobe Captivate and I've heard that the latest version, Adobe Captivate 3 was announced yesterday.
Adobe Captivate 3 software allows you to rapidly create "powerful and engaging" simulations, scenario-based training, and quizzes without programming knowledge or multimedia skills. It's based on Adobe Flash software and Captivate 3 automatically generates interactive, Adobe Flash Player content for easy online distribution and access.
I feel the need to run a late night install and have a play.
OK, so it seems my comments regarding the gods were somewhat premature. Thanks to the UK Monsoon season, my car broke down on Friday driving home from work. Water in the engine is the diagnosis, the solution? Aparently, I have to open my wallet and look away as a financial bloodbath ensues.
On a brighter note, it looks like I passed a little Acrobat exam I took last week so maybe I might know what I'm talking about. With that in mind, a little tip for someone who recently asked me about eForms. I showed the distribute forms wizard that allows a form to be distributed and the results merged.
This provoked interest in maybe merging forms created before this feature was available, luckily, this isn't to hard to achieve....
1. Open the Forms menu and select "Manage Form Data"
2. In the sub menu select "Merge Data Files into Spreadsheet"
3. A dialog window appears and asks you to add the forms you wish to merge.
4. Select the forms and click
5. You can now open the merged data in Excel
Friday morning, just about to start the "Ask the expert" session and on a typical English summers day we have a temperature of 15 degrees C, pouring rain (it's official, the UK has a 5th season "Monsoon") and the thunder and lightning has just started.... I believe Thor is issuing forth thunderbolts in an attempt to put me off my stride. Well it isn't going to work.
In other news, I'd like to point out that the smile in my pic isn't forced, it's just that I do actually look that insincere!
I ran 3 more Acrobat Pro seminars this week using Acrobat Connect from my home office, I'm really enjoying the extra time these fre up because I don't have to travel to meet the audience, they just dial into my meeting room and away we go. I even gave one of the delegates control over my laptop, well, for a few seconds anyway.
Errrrmm, OK, well, this is me as Mike Yarwood used to say, before singing badly.
Those of a nervous disposition, please avert their gaze now!
Paramedics please......
In case my Friday 13th posts didn't make sense (apart from the Bradley Wiggins post) here are the details for my regular Friday phone in.
Every Friday - 10am - I run an hour long "Ask the expert" session on Meeting Place +44 (0)208 606 1105 p/w 5442 and if required I can use the Connect meeting room I have available.
I don't guarantee to answer all questions there and then but I'll do my best. As I mentioned, Acrobat users often know more about their specialist area than I do.
BTW - A quick congratulations to my fiancee who ran her forst 10K in around 8 years yesterday. Finished in 1 hour 30seconds, she was miffed at not dipping under the 60 minute mark, so that means I'm condemmed to some more early morning runs!!
Well, Bradley is being closed down by the peleton in la Tour de France. Another noble effort by a plucky Brit. It looks like a sprint finish will determine the outcome of stage 6 to Bourg-en-Bresse..... C'mon Bradders!!
So, the ask the expert session was quite today. Is it because it's Friday the 13th? Are we all scared to touch our IT?
I've used the time instead to add some Flash based pods to my Connect environment. I now have a map of the world that shows where the meting attendees are located, be it New York, Munich, Beijing or Darlington.
I also have a virtual set of fridge magnet letters, so you can leave me naughty messages while we wait for meetings to start. There are, however, not enough 'e's as is often the case. Any imaginative sentences containing lots of everyones least favourite vowel "U" are welcome. Ive often thought of it as a bit of a freeloader anyway, 'a's and 'e's cary the weight of the vowel community in my opinion.... hey, I'm just calling it as I see it.
Friday morning, so it's the "Ask the expert" session again. An hour of answering unusual questions from people who, I think, might know more about Acrobat than I do. We'll see what it turns up this week.
Earlier this week I spent an afternoon meeting with a print services company to see if we might be able to integrate Acrobat into their offerings. It didn't sem like an obvious fit but once they had explained how they worked and what they sold I had a great time showing them things that would make their life easier....
Shared review on a document - great for bidding for business.
Ad Hoc forms creation and data capture - Customer relations and information gathering for customer intelligence
Email archive into PDF - Sarbanes Oxley anyone?
Scanning to PDF including OCR?
All good baby, all good! And people think Acrobat is all about creating PDF!
Au revour tout le monde!
As I type, dear reader, I have just returned from my "Stag weekend" or bachelor party as I believe my North american friends would have me say. I spent my time in Newcastle-upon-tyne (temp 15 degrees celcius, rain) and my future bride spent the weekend in Pisa and Florence (temp 33 degrees c, sunny)..... that's how smart I am.
The weekend has passed off OK. I still have both of my eyebrows, at no point was I dressed as anything else but myself, I did not end up on a train to Minsk and a quick scan with a mirror reveals no surprise tattoos...result. I am though, pretty darn tired, managing 4 hours of sleep since Friday morning, my friends took it in turn to keep me awake.
So, I'm feeling blank, which is my radio 2 style slinky-link into mentioning somthing that I explained at a training event I delivered last Wednesday. I was asked about creating a PDF page from scratch and entering text. People often say to me things like "Acrobat is great, but I just want to open it and start typing". people also often say "Steve, you are so handsome, why did you give up being a male model?"
The PDF first, you can start creating a PDF from a blank page (of any size you choose)
Choose File > Create PDF > From Blank Page.
Begin typing the text you want to add to the blank page.
Add any formatting to the text by selecting it and selecting options on the New Document toolbar.
As needed, select other tools and options that you want to apply to the PDF.
Choose File > Save, and select a name and location for the PDF file.
Note: When the page is filled with text, the PDF Editor automatically adds a new blank page to the document.
It's really handy for short documents and there's quite a bit of formatting available from the toolbar and options. Sometimes it's just easier than starting a document from Word, or a clipboard image, you can now just start from scratch.
Well, the second question is much harder to answer... I'll save it for another post.
So, I was asked to deliver another seminar to some Universities last week... Now I'm based in London and have been travelling all over the UK and beyond every week for the last 8 months, so I wanted to do this without annoying my finacee.
Seemed like a good cue for Acrobat Connect Professional. I was able to work from my home office and present to a collection of delegates who were spread all over the country. We ran a show and tell seminar where everyone concerned only needed the free Flash player on their PC or Mac, everyone could see me via webcam, hear me with Voice over IP and also see my laptop screen. Even better, I was able to hand over control of my desktop to a delegate...(and grab it back when I wanted... I'm not crazy).
But the best bit? No lengthy setup, the meeting room exists in perpetuity, so all I did was email my room details out and everyone met half an hour later!
People have been asking me... Why do we need Acrobat now Microsoft does PDF?
Do you have any other applications other than Office 2007?
Do you want to read PDFs?
Do you want to combine files together?
Collaborating on documents?
Working with people outside your organisation?
Electronic forms of interest?
PDF/A - wanna archive?..... you get the point, I could go on but.....
EDIT:
Thanks to Dwight for reminding me, Microsoft Office 2007 supports creating PDF/A-1b files.
Yes, I know, he lost......... again!
So, it's that time of the year when middle aged English women dress in Union Jacks and shout "Come on Tim!"
I just thought I'd join in, well not the dress part, just the shouting.
So, I ran a webinar yeaterday using Acrobat Connect Professional. The subject was Acrobat in the Education space and the delegates were all impresed by just how simple the e-conference environment was to use. I ran full screen screen-sharing, passed control of my laptop to a chap who had a Mac and held a couple of online polls. The results of those polls?
1. Yes, Acrobat eForms would be useful in Faculty and outside for ad-hoc information gathering
2. Yes, I look better on a webcam than in person.
It seems I have the perfect face for Radio..... I'll see if I can dig out a pic and let you decide.
I am often asked why the Acrobat application is so large, in fact I get the same question about the Reader application too. I wonder if people think programmers are getting sloppy and aplication software is needlessly large these days. I do recall learning to write assembly language (yes, I'm THAT old) and being told to save every byte.
The simple truth about Acrobat is that it must meet the requirements of very large and disparate user community. Everyone from Architects, Lawyers, Educators, Engineers, Marketeers, Musketeers (nope), Governments, Creatives and individuals, all use Acrobat for differing tasks and jobs.
As a result, when Adobe makes an upgrade, we add a whole lot of functionality improvements. The perception issue we have is that each individual might only notice a small percentage of those in their daily lives, depending on the parts of the product they use. Believe me though, the changes we make and features we add are driven by customer demand.
So, let's not pretend I spout Latin all the time like some Lorem Ipsum site. Anyway, between rescuing kittens from trees and righting the misconceptions about Acrobat that are out there, how do I plan to maintain this blog? Well, a little and often will be the plan, having said that, I'm away from work for an extended weekend starting on Thursday so my introduction to blogging will be short... Now, where's that ladder?
So, a pretty good seminar in London, at the Gloucester Millenium hotel. Around 200 people attended to see and hour and a half scenario based presentation of Acrobat.
We normally finish with around 20 minutes of questions from the audience, today's most popular subject: Redaction.
What's that? Well, it's the permanent removal of sensitive information from a document, it's achieved easily in Acrobat 8 Professional... just open a document....
Then Choose View > Toolbars > Redaction.
1. Select the Mark For Redaction tool .
2. Mark items you want to remove by doing any of the following:
a. Double-click to select a word or image.
b. Press Ctrl/Control as you drag to select a line, a block of text, an object, or an area.
Use this method to select areas of a page in a scanned document.
3. To preview how your redaction marks will look, hold the pointer over the marked area.
4. To redact the marked items, click Apply Redactions in the Redaction toolbar.
5. Click OK to remove the items. The items aren’t permanently removed from the document until you save it.
I would then save the file via "Save As" and rename the new version, so that you still have the original with the unredacted content.
It's really useful if you have to share documents but want to protect certain parts of the content.
Day 1: Why am I so late to the blogging business?
So, I've finally started a Blog. Why? Well, in my role as the Business Development Manager for Adobe Acrobat, I've become a stranger to the Stockley Park office these past 8 months as I'm spending all my time at events or with customers. I thought it would be good for my friends and colleagues, maybe also those who know of my existence but wondered what I do, to see what I'm up to.
What I'll also try to do is to note down some of those Acrobat related things that I'm asked on a regular basis. It seems that certain events throw up different issues and questions.
I'll also try and make this a good read, I have no idea how that's going to turn out, I never kept much of a jornal as a lad so I have no idea if my writing stype is humourous or not.... let's see if my hits top 12 eh?