Screenshot of Adobe Reader X running on Windows 7 |
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| Developer(s) | Adobe Systems |
| Stable release | 10.1.1 (September 13, 2011) [±] |
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows Mac OS X GNU/Linux BlackBerry Tablet OS |
| Size | |
| Type | Desktop publishing software |
| License |
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| Website | |
Adobe Acrobat is a family of application software developed by Adobe Systems to view, create, manipulate, print and manage files in Portable Document Format (PDF).[3] All members of the family, except Adobe Reader (formerly Acrobat Reader), are commercial software, while the latter is available as freeware and can be downloaded from Adobe's web site. Adobe Reader enables users to view and print PDF files but has negligible PDF creation capabilities.[4] Acrobat and Reader are widely used as a way to present information with a fixed layout similar to a paper publication.
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Since the early 1990s, the Acrobat product has had several competitors, some of which used their own document formats, such as:
By the late 1990s PDF had become the de facto standard, and the others had become largely historical footnotes. This in turn has led to many more competitors for Adobe Acrobat, providing both free and commercial programs that create or manipulate PDF, such as Ghostscript, Foxit, Nitro PDF and Nuance Communications. Adobe also allows Acrobat plug-ins to be developed by third parties, which can add extra functions within the Acrobat program.
Adobe has changed the names of the products in the Acrobat family regularly, also splitting-up, joining, or discontinuing products. Initially, the name "Acrobat" was used as the parent name to a suite of products which included Acrobat Reader, Acrobat Exchange and Acrobat Distiller. Over time Acrobat Reader became Adobe Reader; and, Acrobat Exchange was simplified to Acrobat. Between version 3 and 5, Standard and Professional versions were one product simply called Adobe Acrobat.
As of December 2010[update], the current main members of the Adobe Acrobat family are:[5]
Unlike most other Adobe products, such as members of Adobe Creative Suite, members of Adobe Acrobat family do not have icons that display two letters on a colored rectangular shape.
Acrobat 1.0 was originally released on 15 June 1993 for Macintosh. It was later for DOS and Windows 3.1. This was not available in single copies and was not initially free, with Acrobat Reader originally priced at $50 per user.[6] After a while, the Internal Revenue Service of the United States purchased a right to distribute Reader 1.0, effectively making it seem free to those who obtained it that way.
Adobe Acrobat 1.0 included:
Acrobat 2.0 was first released in September 1994 for Windows and Macintosh. It included:
Acrobat Professional 2.0 was also released, which included Acrobat Exchange plus Distiller.
Adobe also released the first Acrobat Plug-ins SDK; allowing third party developers to create plug-ins for the Acrobat Exchange application.
Acrobat 3.0 was released in November 1996. It was the first release to support Windows 95, and the last to support Windows 3.1. It was also the first version to display PDF files inside web browsers, and the first to support form-filling. Later, an update to version 3.02 introduced extended forms capabilities and JavaScript. Adobe Acrobat 3.0 included:
Acrobat 4.0 was released in April 1999. It included:
Adobe also released Distiller Server 4.0, a version of Distiller for Windows, Linux and Solaris that is licensed to multiple users, as well as Acrobat Business Tools 4.0, a limited version of Acrobat.
Acrobat 5.0 was released in May 2001. It included support for PDF version 1.4 and was the last version to support Windows 95. Acrobat 5.0.5 was the first to be able to run native in Mac OS X, but also ran in Mac OS 9.
This version did not include PDFWriter in Macintosh release.[7]
Acrobat Reader 5.1, the subsequent version of Acrobat reader supported the Adobe LiveCycle Reader Extensions for forms saving
Adobe also released Distiller Server 5.0 and Acrobat Approval 5.0, a limited version of Acrobat mainly sold to people who wanted to digitally sign PDF files or save fill-in forms.
Acrobat 6.0 was released in July 2003. This version introduced significant changes to the family of Adobe Acrobat:
This version included:
Version 6 of the application was criticized for its performance. Adobe Acrobat 6 is slow to load and use. The Acrobat 6 plug-ins for web browsers was also criticized for suffering from low performance and potentially rendering one's web browser non-responsive.[8]
Adobe Acrobat 7.0 was released in January 2005:[9] It was the first version to include a mandatory product activation. It included:
The Adobe Acrobat 7 family saw multiple changes. Adobe Acrobat 7 Professional for Windows now included Adobe LiveCycle Designer 7.0. Adobe Elements 7.0 was also released which was still only sold through volume licensing outlet but dropped the minimum licenses limit to 100 licenses. Finally, another edition of Adobe Acrobat, Acrobat 3D, was added to the family.
Adobe Acrobat 3D included all of the functionality of Acrobat Professional 7.0 as well as updated support for embedded 3D computer graphics, tools for capturing 3D content from OpenGL applications, and the Adobe Acrobat 3D Toolkit for converting CAD documents to PDF objects. Also included is a version of the capture tool for installation on Unix.
Acrobat 7 further dropped support for Windows 98 Second Edition and Windows Me. However, Adobe released editions of Adobe Reader for Linux, Solaris (SPARC only), HP-UX and IBM AIX.
Adobe Acrobat 8.0 was released in November 2006:[10] It included:
A later update 8.1 on June 2007 was released in order to support Microsoft Office 2007, Windows Vista, and 64-bit Windows operating systems.[12] Also in September 2007, Adobe Reader 8.1.1 released for Linux and Solaris (SPARC) users.
Adobe Acrobat 8 family saw a handful of changes. Acrobat 3D was now able to produce embedded PRC file format, a highly compressed format for geometry and graphics which requires Reader 8.1 to display. It also supported Product Manufacturing Information and many different CAD formats.
Acrobat Connect Professional (formerly Macromedia Breeze) was also added to the family. It allowed scalable interactive web conferencing and multiple personal meeting rooms for everyone across an enterprise.
The Mac OS X version of Adobe Acrobat Pro saw a significant favor: Adobe Acrobat for Macintosh was in Universal binary and ran on both PPC and Intel.
Adobe Acrobat 9.0 was released in July 2008:[13][14] It included:
Adobe Acrobat 9 family includes a new member: Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended for Microsoft Windows. This product includes Adobe Presenter as well as the features of Acrobat 3D.
Adobe Reader 9 drops support for Adobe Reader Extensions 5 and 6 which permit Adobe Reader client software to save changes to filled-in forms in PDFs. Adobe Reader Extensions 6.1 and newer are still supported. Legacy PDFs will still be viewable, however they will open with the following warning:
| “ | This document enables Reader capabilities that are no longer enabled in this Reader version.[15] | ” |
Adobe Acrobat 9 family also dropped the multiple document interface. Previous versions of Adobe Acrobat opened multiple PDF files in the same window. Acrobat 9 however, only supports the single document interface scheme, wherein each PDF file is opened in an instance of Adobe Acrobat.[16]
Adobe Acrobat X (version 10.0) was released on November 15, 2010.[17][18] It included sandboxing protection for Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 and protected mode view dropping support for Windows 2000 as well as Macs running on PPC.
Adobe Reader X is available for Windows, Mac OS, Android and iOS.[19][20][21][22] Support for Linux is not planned.[23] The latest version of Adobe Reader X is 10.1.1 For Android and IOS :10.1.0, and 10.1.1 for Windows and Mac.[24]
Adobe Acrobat is available in the following languages: Arabic, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian. Arabic, Hebrew and Greek versions available from WinSoft International,[25] Adobe Systems' internationalization and localization partner. Adobe Reader is not available in catalan in current versions.
The Arabic and Hebrew versions are specifically developed for these specific languages, which are normally written right-to-left. These versions come with special TouchUp properties to handle digits, ligatures option and paragraph direction in right-to-left Middle Eastern scripts such as Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian, as well as standard left-to-right Indian scripts such as Devanagari and Gujarati. The Web Capture feature can convert single web pages or entire web sites into PDF files, while preserving the content's original text encoding. Acrobat can also copy Arabic and Hebrew text to the system clipboard in its original encoding; if the target application also supports the text encoding, then the text will appear in the correct script.
The latest security bulletins from Adobe are published on their Security bulletins and advisories page[26]
From Version 3.02 onwards, Acrobat Reader (now Adobe Reader) has included support for JavaScript. This functionality allows the document creator to include code which executes when the document is read. While JavaScript is designed without direct access to the file system to make it "safe", vulnerabilities have been reported for abuses such as distributing malicious code through Acrobat.[27] McAfee predicts that Adobe software, especially Reader and Flash, will be the primary target for attacks in 2010.[28] Adobe applications had already become the most popular client-software targets for attackers during the last quarter of 2009.[29]
On September 13, 2006, David Kierznowski provided sample PDF files illustrating these vulnerabilities. Since at least version 6, JavaScript can be disabled using the preferences menu and embedded URLs that are launched are intercepted by a security warning dialog box to either allow or block the website from launching.[30]
On February 19, 2009, Adobe released a Security Bulletin announcing Javascript vulnerabilities. US-CERT recommended users change two default preferences in the program:[31]
For users of Internet Explorer, US-CERT recommended changing an additional default behavior:[31]
It was reported [32] on January 14, 2010 that an analyst identified a vulnerability in Internet Explorer as a tool used to spy on companies and individuals.
"...independent research conducted by security firm McAfee, which has found evidence that a vulnerability in Internet Explorer—but not Acrobat Reader—was exploited in the attack. iDefense later retracted its claim about PDFs, but stands behind the rest of its report."
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