Customer Reviews

Adobe Acrobat 5.0 Upgrade [Old Version]

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Acrobat is an indispensible but overpriced utility. With the ubiquity of the PDF format, all applications really need to start having "Save as PDF" as a built-in function. Until then, we need Acrobat to save files in a shareable format.

I foolishly believed the packaging that states this is an upgrade from version "4.0 and earlier." Don't believe it! I had a full legal version of 3.01, and the 5.0 installer refused to recognize it. Adobe tech support refused to give me a 6 digit key code until I faxed them proof of purchase for both versions 3 and 5! Once they received the fax, they then refused to provide the key code unless I was physically at my PC at home. I wasted a whole week fooling around with Adobe, and their only excuse was "this is company policy." Well, it is not my policy to support companies that treat their customers like suspected criminals...

Acrobat is an essential utility and performs as it should, so it is great for that. But its price for what it is mainly used for, it's deceitful packaging, and its terrible customer relations bring it down to a mere 3 on a scale of 1 to 5.

Acrobat for Windows (and other Adobe software) is expensive. Way too much. Every Adobe program costs hundreds of dollars, and only recently they started offering product suites that greatly reduce the cost of ownership. Acrobat is included in every such collection. The problem with such collections (4 programs) is that the price tag approaches 4 digits. All of these suites contain Acrobat (4.0), the heading program of "e-paper solutions". If the changes from version 3.0 to version 4.0 were profound, then the change to version 5.0 is much more than substantial, it's overwhelming.

REMARKS FOR FIRST-TIME USERS: If you don't already know that, here is a short, but important message for newcomers to the PDF world: if you only need to read PDF files - you do not need Adobe Acrobat - just download a free Acrobat *Reader* from Adobe website. If you need to create the simplest possible version of PDF documents, there are free tools on the web that will allow you to do that. Acrobat is a powerful program that is designed to assist you in almost every aspect of publishing electronic documents online, or sharing them in a multi-platform environment. Hence, as this software is expensive - you might reconsider your purchase. If you regularly publish important stuff online and you work in a potentially multi-platform environment or the whole network AND you think seriously about your work, then Acrobat is for you (this is why I tested and bought yet another upgrade). Nevertheless, this powerful tool may be too much. If you need to distribute files among friends or post some messages online, you might consider using HTML (available even via any word-processing software like Word). PDF format is really designed to be multi-platform - and you have to pay a "nice" price for the opportunity to create such documents.

WHY IS THE UPGRADE WORTH YOUR ATTENTION: For the first time in Acrobat history you are able to RESTRUCTURE existing PDF documents. It's especially useful when you no longer have the original version of the file from which PDF was created. To this end, Acrobat uses the RTF format recognizable by every word processor. Acrobat can publish user-interactive documents online - with integrated (yet still limited) options used in productivity office suites: calculation, spell-checking, multi-user collaboration. You can specify permissions on distributed documents, like allowing/disallowing printing, changing or copying text to clipboard. Newly supported encryption is now 128 bit. Finally, FINALLY, Adobe decided to simplify the user interface a little. Now, more than ever, Acrobat toolbars are much more customizable - you can arrange them in the floating Photoshop-type way, or use all toolbars (including new formatting toolbar) at once, as in Microsoft software. This is a step in a good direction. Last, but not least, you have a PDF repair utility. It is especially useful when you use a browser plug-in (Acrobat integrates with MSIE and Netscape) to save a web page, or capture it and convert to PDF. There is a high probability that the file will include unnecessary portions of html code, including scripts. That's a very good reason to upgrade, if not anything else.

REMARKS: PDF writer (a simple PDF-producer included as a "virtual" PDF printing option) fails more often than not and in order to have correct results, it's better to use Distiller (a full-featured virtual PDF printing engine) which may be not user-friendly to new users. Still, in this version 5.0 the old truth remains the same: not every graphics object you have in your document will be converted - sometimes you will get a blacked area instead of the picture. There is no other way around than experimenting with the file type, which may be confusing in some productivity applications.

SUMMARY: Powerful tool for those who really need multi-platform secure document creation and distribution. It's still relatively-user unfriendly. If you have already used a previous version, 4.0., do not hesitate. If you are contemplating first-time purchase, read the above remarks and think twice. That's of course if you have enough money to buy Acrobat.

Adobe delivers a fine product in Adobe Acrobat. The PDF format is my favorite for delivering content rich material through the Internet. This upgrade improves functionality in manipulating PDF files, navigation, analysis of PDF file internals, file comparison, and web capture. Adds the ability to merge comments from multiple reviews. Adds automatic creation of thumbnails. Substantially upgraded form technology via calculation fields, Javascript, and common fields.

I am disappointed that Adobe has cut the paper capture feature from the Acrobat product. Paper capture allows you to take a PDF file in image format (created for example by using an image scanner) and generate a smaller and searchable PDF document. The paper capture feature uses text recognition technology. Acrobat has the best paper capture recognition technology in the market. If you want to use the paper capture feature you have three choices: use the older Adobe Acrobat 4.0, purchase the Adobe Acrobat Capture product for ..., purchase an online paper capture subscription for ... per year.

Double Beware!! I am also a legal owner of version 3.1. I bought version 5.0 upgrade. Nowhere in the box can you find a warning saying that if you have version 3.0 or 3.1, the program will not install. I feel taken, robbed. I will never buy an ADOBE program again. I bought the program when I visited the US last month. I give the program 1 star for the simple reason that I HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO INSTALL IT. I bought version 3.1, 5 years ago. Am I supposed to keep the receipts?

Version 5 has features I dreamed about in 3.0 and 4.0, but despaired of ever seeing. Adobe made my dreams come true. Here are the highlights that make this an essential tool if you work with PDF files or transform other documents into PDF format: You can now save files in rich text format (RTF), which can be directly opened and edited in Microsoft Word (and other applications). I was able to do this in version 4 with an expensive third-party plug-in that did not always produce the results I was looking for. Version 5 does not need the plug-in and does a much better job.

Two other features that I love are the ability to extract images from a PDF file and save them as Tiff, JPEG or PNG graphics. This is really powerful. A nice touch is the user interface, which now makes Acrobat's tool bars look like those in Microsoft Office applications. I thought this was a quantum improvement over the confusing interface in previous versions.

Adobe touts added security features in this version, but the only thing I found different is the 128-bit encryption. Version 4 gave me total control over protecting documents from alteration, selecting and copying text and printing. As a consultant I sometimes need to provide clients with intellectual property that I need to protect, and the features that I enjoyed in version 4 have been fully carried over in this version. Another nice feature that has been carried over from the previous version is the ability to open a web page from within Acrobat and save it as a PDF file. I have grabbed many pages from many sites for off-line reading using this feature and it still works without a problem in version 5.

Other features that are interesting, but I have not tried, include the ability to create and publish dynamic forms online, and support for XML form data. When I get time I plan to play around with creating and publishing the dynamic forms because I can think of a dozen uses on my web site.

Regarding the missing paper capture feature pointed out by a previous reviewer, I never used it, so I don't miss it. However, if it is important to you please heed the other reviewer's comments.

Overall this is a solid product that did not cause me the same pain I endured when I moved from version 3 to 4. Everything works as advertised and some of the new features are plain wonderful. The upgrade is something you will definitely want to invest in.

I have been LEGALLY using Adobe software for years, including Photoshop, PageMaker, LiveMotion, GoLive, Acrobat, etc. I own two registered copies of Acrobat 3.01 and I was still unable to install the 5.0 upgrade! I tried the passcode, pointing to the CD, everything! Adobe Tech support finally tells me that the reason my install is failing is because I still have the previous version on my machine...so I have to edit my registry. If this is your method of preventing software piracy (by keeping valid users uphappy), then shame on you, Adobe!

Adobe has since released a revised CD, so I was told by tech support when I recently had to reinstall several times. His response was that if I did not like having to call for a new passcode each time I have to reinstall, then I should BUY the corrected CD. Never offered me a patch. Can you believe it?

Although pdf files are very useful in digitizing paper materials, the fact that Adobe crippled its 5.0 version of its Paper Capture (OCR, text recognition) functionality is shameful. When I purchase an upgrade, I expect BETTER functionality, not worse. With 5.0, you can only capture 50 pages of a document - if its longer than 50 pages, you must purchase the Adobe Capture product. With the previous version (4.0x), there was NO limit to the number of pages and no need to waste more money. Do NOT buy this product - go to Ebay and buy somebody's 4.0 version for cheap. (Note: the 4.0 version of paper capture does NOT work with Windows XP and no bug fix is provided so you are screwed if you have XP).

When Acrobat 4 was upgraded to 4.05 Adobe included a very useful OCR facility within the program for use with your own scanner. In Acrobat 5 this has been radically altered. You are now required to send your scan to a remote OCR facility on an Adobe web site for which only a limited number of document captures are free. Therafter you must pay a subcsription fee. So think carefully before changing to version 5.

Adobe claims Acrobat will PDF "any" document. This is not true. Example: It will PDF a Microsoft Word document if the document dimentions are set at 8.5 x 11 inch, but it certainly will not PDF a small paperback size book such as 6 x 9 size. The top of each page will be cut off and table of contents will not form, etc. A very strong defect in this Acrobat program that should be fixed. As a book publisher, we contacted Adobe about a year ago on this problem and they never responded back to us. This defect cripples the Acrobat program. Any book you plan to publish had better be 8.5 x 11. No other sizes will work, using Microsoft Word software. We even contacted a bestselling PDF author and even he could not get Acrobat to PDF a small book size in Microsoft Word. Yes, there are settings to select in Acrobat to PDF smaller size documents, but still the Acrobat software fails to make the adjustments and PDF the document. A very major and persistant problem Adobe has refused to correct. Acrobat will not PDF "any" document, as advertised.

Despite what it says on the box, upgrading from a version other than 4.x is a pain, assuming you can even do it. As I was struggling thru failure messages I finally was directed by the install program to a page on their web site ... which it turns out does not even exist. Broken link. Duh. I gave up (it was late at night), wrote them a cheery letter thru their web feedback page, and have heard nothing in 3 weeks.

I am not a satisfied customer.