Before I begin, I should say that I'm reviewing this from an individual user's perspective. Large businesses and other organizations would find the product more useful, but I figure they're unlikely to buy the software from Amazon.
The main issue for potential Amazon buyers shouldn't be whether it's a useful product--it is. Rather, is it useful enough to justify its high price? For most users, I think it isn't. Instead, I recommend looking at some other products whose *combined* price is a fraction of Acrobat X Professional.
Here are the PDF features I use most and that I think are most relevant to individual users.
PRINTING TO PDF. If this is all you want from a PDF software, then Acrobat is waaaay overkill. The free version of Cute PDF is all you need.
SCANNING TO PDF. Many scanners come with software that allows you to save as a PDF, so look into that first. Otherwise, check out Cute PDF Professional and Foxit Phantom PDF Suite.
SEARCHING PDF. The free Acrobat Reader has a nice search function.
EDITING TEXT IN PDF. I recommend
Corel PDF Fusion because of its great function that allows you to import a PDF directly into Word and edit it there.
COMBINING DOCUMENTS, DELETING/INSERTING PAGES, ETC. There are many PDF software programs that do this. Cute PDF Professional allows you to insert blank pages into a PDF, something Acrobat still doesn't let you do even though it's a basic feature that many people would like. CORRECTION: Apologies for missing the feature the first time. Acrobat does allow you to insert a blank page. In the Pages section of the Tools sidebar, go to "More Insert Options".
I've mentioned a few PDF programs so far (PDF Fusion, Cute PDF Professional, Foxit Phantom PDF Suite), but there are some that I haven't tried that may be worth investigating:
--Nitro PDF
--Soda PDF
--PDF Suite Pro
--Inflix PDF
You may have noticed that I didn't mention Nuance PDF Converter. Until Nuance fixes its problem of making you re-activate if you insert an external hard drive, I can't recommend it.
Even if you have to buy more than one of these products to get all the features you want, the combined price is still less than Acrobat, and you'll get some additional features that Acrobat doesn't have.
Now, who *should* buy Acrobat? First, people who need good optical character recognition (OCR). There's no better software for this. Second, people who want to create PDF forms. Again, no better software.
Bottom line, Acrobat offers almost all the features you get in other programs, all in one package. But that's one very expensive package, and for the price, you could get multiple other PDF programs and have money left over.
Before buying, I highly recommend downloading the free 30 day trial of not just Acrobat but also the other software programs I've mentioned.
Full disclosure: I received a free test copy of Acrobat X Professional but was not compensated for this review. You can get a free 30-day test copy too at the Adobe website.
