Shared Reviews introduced in Acrobat 8 are invaluable for those who need to get feedback on documents from others that are not part of their company or organization. As the document is enabled for commenting in the free Adobe Reader, you won't have to take out a second mortgage to buy everyone you need to work with a copy of Acrobat 8, just for the purposes of the review of a single document.
However, if you were working with external reviewers in a Shared Review in Acrobat 8, a WebDAV server was typically required as the repository for collecting those comments from others (the other option is to use a Network Folder, but those aren't typically made available outside the firewall). For many small business or workgroups, setting up a WebDAV server may not be a viable option - you have a day job to worry about, or the servers are looked after by others in a different location.
Well, Acrobat 9 addresses that particular problem, especially for those who don't have an IT resource that is just a phone call or stones throw away: Acrobat 9 can now use Acrobat.com servers as the repository to collect comments for Shared Reviews.
To use it in Acrobat 9 is straightforward. Just initiate a Shared Review as you normally would from the Comments taskbar button or menu, but in the Send for Shared Review wizard choose "...with Acrobat.com" as the location to collect comments from reviewers.
Once you've signed in with your free Adobe ID, you can just tell Acrobat 9 who you want to invite, what the deadline for the review is, and Acrobat 9 takes care of uploading the PDF document securely to your Share library on Acrobat.com for others to access. Your reviewers will get a link to download the document via an email from Acrobat.com.
From then on it works just like any other Shared Review. But there is one additional benefit...because you are using Acrobat.com, you can also turn on Page View Sharing (aka Send and Collaborate Live). Now you can also see who else is reviewing the document whilst seeing the comments they add, as well as the view of the page. Rad!
It's important to note that using Acrobat.com for Shared Reviews only works with Acrobat 9. If you have initiated the Shared Review with Acrobat.com from Acrobat 9 Pro or Acrobat 9 Pro Extended, the document will also be enabled for commenting in the free Adobe Reader - again, version 9 only in this case.
Now those of you in small businesses, or working from home, or in a department without technical resources, can scratch off "IT Manager" from the list of tasks you have to do in addition to your regular day job. Unfortunately, we can't help with the plumbing problems you have.
