Talk:Adobe Acrobat

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Contents

[edit] Info added

Added info on the just released Acrobat 3D Blade 19:06, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] PDF Writer

As someone who used to support Acrobat 5 I can tell you for a fact that PDFWriter did exist on the Mac it was however an optional component (as it was on Windows). Acrobat 6 was the first version to not have the PDF Writer anymore on Mac/Windows --Skuld-Chan 04:06, 3 September 2006 (UTC) .

With respect, I must disagree. That isn't at all how I remember it. But, in the style of Wikipedia, what is really needed is for one of us to find a source to back up our assertions. Notinasnaid 07:33, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
I've found one, and reinstated the text. Perhaps you were seeing PDFWriter left over from a previous installation of Acrobat 4.0. Notinasnaid 07:45, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism section

I've deleted the section Criticism, which ran like this:

Adobe Reader has been criticized in blogs and user reviews on websites such as CNET. Some users feel that it is "bloatware" which takes up an excessive amount of system resources. Many users also dislike that it tries to install the Yahoo! Toolbar and other third party software even if the user does not want it to. It does this both at instalation and when automatically updating. A good example of this criticism can be found in the CNET editor's review of the rival Foxit Reader - "To put it gently, Acrobat Reader is a real pain in the hindquarters. It's monstrously large, slow to load, and includes many features that most users will hardly ever need." [1] Less resource draining alternatives to Acrobat are available, such as Foxit Reader and eXPert PDF Reader, both of which are free. [2] [3]

The reason is not to deny that these criticms exist (though "user reviews" and "blogs" are not especially reliable as sources). The reason to remove it is that the actual link given [4] doesn't support the assertion. The review says many things but includes a few lines after the quoted portion "Unfortunately, Foxit PDF Reader has one considerable flaw: it hogs a huge amount of system memory. In our tests, it took up 210MB, compared to 21MB for Acrobat with the same documents". So, I don't think anyone could describe Foxit Reader as "less resource draining" on the basis of that source, memory being a crucial resource (and people generally have less of it than other things like hard disks). I looked into rewriting it but I couldn't really do that in a way that left the meaning intact. I think the whole section has to go, for now, and be rewritten from a more neutral perspective. The writing should also make it clear that this is not a general criticm of the Acrobat family, just the Adobe Reader, if that is the case. Notinasnaid 15:38, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Its the same idea with explorer and firefox explorer.exe runs less then firefox.exe but i still prefer firefox regardless foxit is a smaller download and a faster startup and on my computer i notice little to no difference runing foxit is more then internet explorer yet less then firefox by like 30,000k Atomic1fire 07:11, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

"There is currently no official option to stop Reader 8 from Phoning home. Furthermore, the "Updates" Preference in Reader 8 has been moved from "Edit | Preferences" to a much less obvious location." This may seem less obvious to some, this is an opinion, lots of update options appear in the help menu in other programs, i.e. firefox 3b5--4.155.102.93 (talk) 18:48, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

There are a few sections in criticism that seem sub-par:

Many have also noted poor behavior in the Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox Acrobat plug-ins. The plug-ins do not support full asynchronous loading, thus causing browsers to appear to "lock up" until the document has been fully downloaded. To make matters worse, they apparently also fail to terminate when a document is closed, thereby leaving behind various CPU-intensive application threads that all but cripple the operating system until the next reboot.[11]
Adobe has also refused to support past versions (version prior to version 8 - their latest) under Windows Vista. Anyone purchasing a new computer must either sacrifice using Adobe PDF tools, step back to Windows XP, or pay an upgrade fee to version 8 to be able to continue using Adobe products.

The first, while generally true in my experience, doesn't have an appropriate citation. The reference is a page about acrord32.exe explaining it's not malware. Only two comments actually bring up the point and comments on a page like this don't seem like good sources for citation. I suggest the citation be changed to something more appropriate. The second, well, it sounds just like someone had a bone to pick because they had to upgrade for full Vista support. It has no citation that this is a significant criticism or, honestly, that it's not something you have to deal with in terms of dozens upon dozens of applications out there. I suggest it be removed unless it's re-written and there's a strong citation that singles out Acrobat on this. Blade 21:05, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree. It is common for companies to drop support for older versions. My other gripe is with the term "lock up". I would prefer to see Apple's description "becomes unresponsive". Connectionfailure 14:07, 26 August 2007 (UTC)


Lacking citation and possibly incorrect:

In Adobe Reader 8, in-browser viewing feature is removed.

Please confirm or deny. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chrono13 (talk • contribs) 07:29, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Screenshot

I changed the previous screenshot to one I took, the main two differences are that my screenshot was taken on a Mac, and is in .PNG as opposed to the previous which was a JPEG and had quality issues. BadCRC 21:21, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

That's really nice! However - you must remember to change the screenshot caption - to "Mac OS X" also... –- kungming·2 | (Talk·Contact) 03:13, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
whoops, I never thought about that, also realized there is an actual issue with the screenshot, the menubar is for Safari, not Adobe Acrobat. I'll try to make another screenshot today or tommorow. 70.25.192.77 15:02, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
that was me BadCRC 15:03, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Alt-Tab

Does anyone know of any fix to the annoying, completely broken Alt-Tab behavior of Adobe Reader 7? I'm talking about the fact that Adobe keeps an entry in the Alt-Tab list for itself, and then for each and every open document, so if you Alt-Tab to the document icon (and not to the Adobe icon) and then try to Alt-Tab out of it, you get back to the same document, and you need to do Alt-Tab-Tab to actually move to the next document / application. Is there a setting somewhere in the application to change it? Or should it be reported as a bug to the developers (if so, where to report it?) Drst 17:30, 12 June 2006 (CET+1)

[edit] Inappropriate tone

The article was just tagged (by an anonymous IP, without comment here) using the tag which generates

 The tone or style of this article or section may not be appropriate for Wikipedia.
Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions.(December 2007)

Personally, I don't see much wrong with the tone. If I don't see any feedback in a few weeks, I'll treat this as a "hit and run" and take the tag off again. Anyone? Notinasnaid 17:10, 9 August 2006 (UTC)


I would agree that there isn't much wrong with the tone in general right now. You can probably remove the tag. There were some vague statements before such as "It is mostly described in those two articles" which I removed. Anyways, there should definitely be some references added esp. for an article of this size. Parnell88 06:46, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
Removed. Sources are an interesting question. How to refer to primary sources which are a pile of software boxes, and the software products themselves? Notinasnaid 09:40, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
I have an issue with the line "Purists and pedants dislike these made-up names." Do we really need this? It could be said about many things, so "it goes without saying". Connectionfailure 00:25, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Controversy section

I dropped a lack of POV warning on this section. I think it's a stretch as worded (both the topic and the idea it's a 'controversy'). It'd be better served as part of a section on security issues with a less accusational tone, maybe. (And it's incorrect - Acrobat has supported JavaScript since version 6 at least.)Blade 00:23, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually 3.02, as the article already said! Notinasnaid 09:27, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ITS SLOWWWW

We all know its slow. Its a fact its slow. Almost everyone agrees its slow. Why cant we keep the criticisms section with a reference to the slowness of it? Its painfully true that many users require hackarounds to speed it up a bit and thats worth noting. The Javascript is even less well publicised, so it baffles me why you keep removing the speed issue.... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.127.73.46 (talk • contribs).

I think the issue is not that the article states that it is slow or that people workaround it. Rather, it's how the issue is being addressed in the included text. The statement is unsourced, consists of weasel words and comes off as someone who has a personal bone to pick (check out the page on NPOV, especially WP:NPOV#Attributing_and_substantiating_biased_statements). It also adds two links that actually refer to the same freeware utility make it seem like advertising spam. We've hit the 3-edit-a-day limit, but I suggest it be reformulated with the guidelines above or it will probably be removed again. Blade 02:38, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
That covers it pretty well. Let's give an example in a different field.
Suppose you know that Ronald Fiction (a fictional politician) is an idiot. All your friends agree. Can you put "Ronald Fiction is an idiot" in an article. No: pure opinion. How about "Many people agree Ronald Fiction is an idiot". Still no, this time weasel words are trying to disguise that it's pure opinion. Ok, how about "A blog entry (link) says Ronald Fiction is an idiot". We now have a source, but it isn't acceptable by Wikipedia standards: anyone can have a blog and say anything.
But how about "Brian Angry, writing a column in the Metropolis Bugle on 2 February 2007 (link) described Ronald Fiction as an idiot." Now we are in better territory. There are still issues of balance. For example, suppose the article actually said "Ronald Fiction and his entire party are all idiots". Presenting this as about just the one man is not objective. Or suppose the article says "Ronald Fiction was an idiot when he voted for this bill, but mostly he's sensible"; again, selective quoting makes this look worse than it is. Equally, including a whole lot of bad quotes and no good ones is off balance. We should also consider who Brian Angry actually is. Is he an opposing politician, or a columnist who calls a different person an idiot each week? This is relevant to his criticism.
Equally, it would be no good to say "Ronald Fiction is an idiot, as Brian Angry, writing a column..." This clearly shows the editor's opinion: you should never be able to tell an editor's own opinion from what they write in Wikipedia.
Now, let's come back to this specific issue. You wrote, most recently "Many consider the software to be quite slow to load and use. Several work around solutions to speed the software up are available on the internet." and used as a source http://underscorebleach.net/jotsheet/2005/01/fix-adobe-acrobat-pdf-problems. The problems here include
1. Weasel words, as noted.
2. You say "the software". What software? As the article explains, Acrobat is a huge family of products, but the source refers only to Adobe Reader. (To confuse things, some sources might not understand the difference either; frankly, this would damage their credibility).
3. The source itself and use of it
(a) it seems to be a blog
(b) he writes "basically I want to urinate on the entire PDF standard". Is this an objective source?
(c) he also writes "If you have Adobe Reader 6, upgrade to 7. It’s actually less bloated". This seems to be an acknowledgement that Adobe have addressed what he sees as a problem. You didn't acknowledge this in the Wikipedia lines you wrote.
I don't think it should be impossible to find a suitable source saying this, and make a suitable entry in the article. It has been said a bit over the years, I agree, though perhaps not as much as you think, and (from my perspective) rather less with recent releases. (Criticisms of old releases are not automatically disqualified, of course: Wikipedia is about the entire history of the product).
I hope this helps. Notinasnaid 09:27, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
Ok, another editor has added this text There have been a number of people who consider the software to be too slow to load and use that they have developed work around solutions to speed up the software.[5][6] . This is better, but it seems that "a number" may still be weasel words. Also, this fails to include the point, included in one of the sources, that Adobe themselves made it better. Comments? Notinasnaid 16:04, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok I changed the wording of that a bit, as it seemed a bit orkward...not much...And added a link to a quote from adobe claiming version 7 is 50% faster, and also a link to a 3rd party developer who claims there software is faster and better and advertises it as such with direct comparisons to adobe

Hope thats better —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.127.73.46 (talk) 10:56, 6 March 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Removed disk space information

I removed the following disk space information. From "Version 5": Removed "Uses ~12MB of disk space when installed (according to Windows XP's Add/Remove programs)." From "Version 8": "Uses ~150MB when installed (according to Windows XP's Add/Remove programs)" The reason for removing this is that it doesn't seem to relate to the article. As the article explains the family for Acrobat 5 included Acrobat, Acrobat Reader, Acrobat Elements, Acrobat Distiller Server. Acrobat 6 included Acrobat Professional, Acrobat Standard, Acrobat Elements, Adobe Reader, Acrobat 3D and many more. If the commentary is on one particular product in the family, it belongs (if anywhere) clearly tagged to the product. There is already enough confusion with users who think Acrobat is just a synonym for the free Acrobat Reader/Adobe Reader. This also gets into presuming that Windows is the only system out there - what about Macintosh, Linux and various Unix systems? Comments please. Notinasnaid 17:45, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi Notinasnaid. Very valid point. In fact, Acrobat Reader 5.0 uses ~8MB disk space, whereas Acrobat Reader 5.1 uses ~12MB disk space, so it can vary significantly between versions, and it's also important that it's clear which product is being referred to. I think the point I was attempting to make was how Acrobat Reader has grown gradually and significantly during it's product lifetime so far, and interestingly with little indication of why given things such as the lack of documented feature differences between 5.0 and 5.1, for example. --Rebroad 19:54, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
As a matter of interest I can perhaps explain the size difference between 5.0 and 5.1. 5.1 was the first to support Reader Extensions, which is a method of allowing specially privileged PDF files to do things that otherwise only Acrobat can do (such as save a filled in form, do a signature, or execute extra JavaScript.) This meant that a lot of extra functions were moved into Acrobat Reader, even though they were not in general visible or accessible unless someone had one of these special PDF files (which were created by people like the IRS). (From memory, not sourced). Notinasnaid 21:15, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removed section "Family members"

I removed the section "Family members". While shedding light on this complicated area is a good idea, there were so many errors that I felt the best solution for now was to remove it. It said:

Today, a standard issue of the so-called Adobe Acrobat Professional would include:
  • Adobe Acrobat Reader, to view files in "pdf" file type
  • Adobe Acrobat Distiller, which can convert certain files into "pdf", including "doc" documents and PostScript files
  • Adobe Acrobat Professional, which is an extension of the Reader, capable of accessing editing tools and the pdf creator "Distiller" which the Acrobat Reader cannot do
  • Adobe Acrobat Designer, also Adobe LiveCycle Designer, which can create forms with eg. pulldown menus using an "xml" file type.
The company released some additional products which are various combinations of the above, and also unrelated software mentioned in the list of Adobe Systems products.
  1. As the article says, the product is called Adobe Reader, not Acrobat Reader.
  2. Adobe Reader is not included with Adobe Acrobat Professional. Installing both is not recommended.
  3. Acrobat Distiller cannot convert "doc" documents (i.e. Microsoft Word documents) into PDF, nor anything else except PostScript files.
  4. Acrobat Designer creates PDF files with embedded XML; it does not create forms using an XML file type directly (and "xml" is not a nickname to be put in quotes).
  5. The entire list claims to define the contents of Acrobat Professonal, but the third item in the list also claims to define this, in terms of the other products. This item is almost accurate but does refer again to Acrobat Reader.
  6. I can find no evidence that Adobe LiveCycle Designer is officially called "Adobe Acrobat Designer", nor even that this wrong name is in common use.
  7. If you are talking about package components, the "Adobe PDF" printer driver is surely one of the most important.
  8. The package is called Adobe Acrobat Professional. That's its name, no need to say "so called".
  9. Use of the word "standard issue" invites confusion with "Adobe Acrobat Standard".
  10. "Today" should not be used in Wikipedia articles, rather "As of (date)".

Sorry, it just had to go! Notinasnaid 07:51, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AOM error

If you get an error launching AOM when you're trying to install Adobe Acrobat run this:

ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/acrobat/win/all/DLMUninst_001.exe

It's the download manager uninstaller. Once un-installed you should be able to redownlaod acrobat.

[edit] Cleanup

I am currently cleaning up this page... when I get the time... but I have already changed the section with the product history, I made the different sections bold for easier reading. Flash Man999 03:05, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I suggest a drastic reduction in the version history details. in fact the version history section can be removed entirely. Wind.anil 06:30, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] PDF Catalog (search index): An Adobe Acrobat proprietary extension?

It's hard to find objective info on this PDF "Catalog" thing (the ".pdx" search index).... Anyone know if this is part of any type of PDF-related standard (eg, open specification?) or completely a proprietary closed-specification add-on to Acrobat? Can any PDF reader (eg, see "implementations") use the ".pdx" index file, and could any application generate the index (catalog) file? (NB: I also asked this on the PDF page; responses would perhaps better go on this topic (Talk:Adobe_Acrobat), since I get the feeling that "catalog" is an Adobe-specific feature.) Michael (talk|contrib) 01:51, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Distiller

Although Adobe Acrobat Distiller is mentioned in the history timeline, the article never actually discusses what it is or what it does. Worse, the WP entry for Adobe Acrobat Distiller redirects to this cursory over-view summary article. Please add more about Distiller to this article, and start a real article about it, if warranted.-69.87.203.19 12:01, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

"Adobe Distiller, formerly known as "Adobe Acrobat Distiller," is a software application that lets you create PDF files from other types of files. A common use for Adobe Distiller is creating PDF files from PostScript files. That is: if you have a PostScript file, you can use Adobe Distiller to create a PDF version of it... Besides letting you create a PDF file from a PostScript file, Adobe Distiller also lets you create a PDF file from within an application. For example, if you've installed Adobe Distiller on your computer, you can create a PDF file from within virtually any application by clicking File > Print and choosing Adobe PDF from the "Printer" list... Even when you create a PDF file from within an application (by using one of the two methods above), what actually happens behind the scenes is that a PostScript file gets created and then Adobe Distiller converts the PostScript file to PDF format."[7] -69.87.203.19 12:52, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

See also "How to create PDF files with Adobe Acrobat Distiller" which has a very detailed walk-through.[8] -69.87.203.19 12:59, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] adding links to product names and competitor sites

Hello,

One of my clients is Adobe and am writing to ask about adding links to product names on the Adobe Acrobat Wiki, and also on competing sites in the "competitors" section. For example under the "Product Name" section I would like to link the product names to their respective adobe pages. Please let me know if links may be added. Thank you. RedbricksmediaSF (talk) 20:15, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

See WP:SPAM--Oneiros (talk) 23:59, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism Vista upgrade?

Somehow the two sentences below need fixing because: (1) although [9] states "Acrobat 7.0 and earlier will not support Windows Vista", I find Reader V7.0.7 will run on my up to date Vista with only an ignorable warning about compatibility; (2) I am not sure that a consumer needs to pay anything to upgrade to version 8 just to use Reader (I haven't tried and don't wish to try, so I might be wrong).

"Adobe has also refused to support past versions (versions prior to version 8 - their latest) under Windows Vista.[15] Anyone switching to Windows Vista must either sacrifice using Adobe PDF tools, or pay an upgrade fee to version 8 to be able to continue using Adobe products."

-Wikianon (talk) 13:44, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

To the above sentence in the article I have added two clarifyme tags, each links to this Talk section.
The first is "what are Adobe PDF tools?" Are these Adobe programs that create PDF documents? Not including Adobe Reader?
The second is related: "not all Adobe products, Reader is still usable, which products are actualy disabled?" The text implies that a Vista user must pay a fee in order to use any Adobe products (not true), when I believe it should precisely indicate which products (PDF tools maybe?) become unusable. -Wikianon (talk) 19:54, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] In-browser viewing

I removed the sentence about in-browser viewing being disabled in Adobe Reader 8 since I myself use this feature. If someone can find a citation regarding this then please re-instate (justify, clarify or take appropriate action regarding) this sentence. --Hydraton31 (talk) 01:18, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
I also just found in the 'Criticism' section on this talk page: Adobe Reader 8 Viewing PDFs in a web browser --Hydraton31 (talk) 01:25, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] a bit of a clean up

I've reworded the lead a little, and removed the following tag therefore;

 This introduction needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2008)

I hope there's nothing too controversial in what I've done, but please do make a note here if you've got any thoughts etc...... Privatemusings (talk) 23:15, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Adobe Acrobat 9.0 comes out June 26, not June 2

I attempted to change the release date to June 26 per amazon http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=adobe+acrobat+9&x=0&y=0 But it didn't work.. can someone correct?75.83.6.92 (talk) 04:42, 10 June 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Adobe launches new online operating system

Has anyone thought about writing the news of Adobe launching itself into the race of online operating systems with players like zoho, thinkfree, google, edeskonline etc., Acrobat's new online operating system link Kalivd (talk) 14:10, 11 June 2008 (UTC)


Pls speak for yr self. Add it if you feel so. I agree that it should be added

Sanjiv swarup (talk) 02:06, 12 June 2008 (UTC)