Adobe Acrobat X: 10 Reasons to Move to It Now

by Darryl K. Taft

Whether you are optimizing PDF files to be posted online, creating accessible documents or ensuring that PDF files comply with one of several industry standards, you can now automate routine, multistep tasks in a guided Action. Create, manage and execute a sequence of frequently used steps in a standardized way that can be applied to single files or batches of files.??íYou can share an Action with others to ensure that processes for working with and preparing PDF documents are followed consistently. Actions can be shared simply, much like any other file, by e-mailing them to your co-workers or collaborators.

Acrobat X lets you work seamlessly with PDF files via new integration with Microsoft SharePoint. You can access SharePoint from any Acrobat X Pro Open or Save dialog to open PDF files from SharePoint for viewing, check out PDF files for editing, or check PDF documents back in after edits are made. You can also specify versioning information and additional SharePoint document properties right from within Acrobat X.

You can easily unify a wide range of content into a PDF Portfolio using an all-new user interface that offers unique, professionally designed layouts, visual themes and color palettes in three easy steps. Efficiently add backgrounds, logos and colors to reflect branding—all with drag-and-drop ease. Import custom layouts and themes created by third-party developers and designers.

With Acrobat X Pro, users can extract content from PDF files for reuse in applications such as Microsoft Excel and Word. Now, right from within Acrobat X without any additional conversion engines or third-party software, you can convert entire PDF files or portions of them into accurate, fully formatted and completely editable files—retaining graphics, text formatting, paragraphs, headers and footers, text boxes, columns, tables and more, and making repurposing faster and pain-free. You can also search across a single or multiple PDF files and then export the search results to another PDF file or to a spreadsheet.

Acrobat X lets you easily manage shared reviews and solicit, collect and aggregate team feedback. And now, anyone with the free Adobe Reader can join the review process—all with access to sticky notes and highlighting and commenting tools, as well as full control and security. Acrobat X is a single tool to easily control and manage the distribution of draft documents to gather comments and markups on virtually any kind of content, and then obtain approvals on the documents in a timely manner. Shared commenting functionality works with Acrobat.com, as well as Microsoft SharePoint or shared network folders. Acrobat X Pro users can also extend Adobe Reader to enable Adobe Readers to access the full set of commenting tools available in Acrobat X Pro.

Sharing information and engaging with customers, partners, or co-workers is crucial in todays business world. However, companies cant afford to compromise when it comes to security or risk having their intellectual property fall into the wrong hands. With Acrobat X, organizations can quickly and consistently edit, prepare, sanitize and secure documents before sharing them with others. With Acrobat X, you can easily find hidden information-including metadata, annotations, attachments, form fields, layers and bookmarks—and delete as needed. You can also use redaction tools to permanently delete sensitive information, including specific text or illustrations.

Using Acrobat X, your team can easily share information and collaborate inside and outside the organization. Built-in controls also make it easier to safeguard the content. Acrobat X now offers the ability to assess the strength of password strings. Visual feedback allows you to improve the strength of passwords and help break some of the more common bad habits of faulty password formulation.

Acrobat X lets users scan and convert paper documents and forms to electronic files with better accuracy using enhanced optical character recognition in Acrobat X Pro. New compression capabilities during scanning lead to smaller file sizes while retaining high quality image fidelity. Acrobat X automatically detects whether pages are color, grayscale or black and white. You can easily convert documents into searchable, high-quality PDFs for archiving, or you can export scanned PDF documents to common Office formats for further editing.

Adobe SendNow, a new document exchange service from Adobe, lets you send and receive large files and track them with proof-of-receipt, so you can avoid e-mail gateway issues, complicated FTP servers or the costs of expensive overnight mail. The SendNow service will be available in Free, Basic and Plus tiers when Acrobat X ships.

Adobe CreatePDF is a document exchange service that will be available through the Adobe Reader X interface as well as through the browser, and allows a user to quickly create a PDF online. The CreatePDF service will be available when Adobe Acrobat X ships.