Customer Reviews

Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Classroom in a Book

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

 

 

After some hesitancy in upgrading the software, I decided to buy the upgraded Classroom in a Book (CIB) for Adobe Acrobat. Other than covering the new features, the format remains the same as CIB for Acrobat 6. This is a good thing as the new version carries the same clear concise instructions as its predecessor. One major improvement is one book now covers both Acrobat Standard and Acrobat Professional. In the book, features that are specific to the Professional version are set in an italicized type face and are preceded by the Acrobat logo.

If you are a beginner to Acrobat document preparation, the lessons will guide you through the basics and take you through the more advanced features. While there is not substitute for experience, a first time user of Acrobat should have no trouble completing the lessons and applying the knowledge to their own projects.

Experienced Acrobat users may wish to use this book as a reference and to quickly get up to speed with the new features. Depending on your level of experience, you may wish to bypass the first three chapters. Even so, I suggest spending some time reading about the Organizer, a new feature that functions like a Bookmarks applet. While not a major breakthrough, it is useful.

The chapter dealing with forms creation using LiveCycle Designer is invaluable. While this is not a tutorial on successful layout, it does provide a very in depth look at the mechanics behind the creation of a form that may be filled out and printed. Features such as text fill in boxes, radio buttons and check boxes are presented along with tips on how to use them effectively. If you are not used to using Acrobat as a creative tool, this section may be an eye opener.

There are also excellent sections on designing pages that make the best use of the medium and how to improve accessibility of your electronic documents. Again, while these are not definitive, the guidelines will point the way to using the features of the program to make the best use of medium in getting your message to as many people as possible. The other chapters are all equally well written and provide good groundwork for such areas as pre-press and electronic publishing.

So far, I've found the Classroom in a Book series to be excellent values. This latest edition is no exception. Whether you are a seasoned veteran looking for a desktop reference or a neophyte just getting started in electronic publication, you will find something here for you.

Despite the title, this is a reference and not a tutorial. It shows how to perform various tasks with Acrobat, such as creating PDFs from common office applications, editing and combining existing PDFs, creating forms, and using some of the special features such as shared document reviews, digital signatures, and making documents viewable and accessible on a variety of devices.

The focus in on particular features of Acrobat. There is little discussion of workflows or the steps one might take end-to-end to create a PDF with desired properties. For example, everyone has seen PDFs with tables of contents and indexes that hyperlink to the specified page, but there's no mention of that in this book and you won't learn how to do it here. There are no troubleshooting tips (for example, what do I do if my images come out fuzzy?).

The treatment leaves Adobe Acrobat Distiller a mystery. From time to time there are instructions to go over to Distiller and change some Acrobat setting, but there's no overall explanation of why it works this way. A sidebar "What is Distiller?" would have been nice.

The book is packaged with a CD-ROM containing all the exercise materials and some tutorial videos. The videos, from lynda and from Total Training, cover most of the features new to Acrobat 8 and are very well done. The book itself is competent but uninspiring.

If you need an introduction to the features, intuitive or obscure, in the Acrobat Professional 8 software, this is the book for you. I looked at other titles in the market but none comes close to this book in coverage and ease of use. Pity it doesn't come for free with the software.

This book is not about creating PDF documents from scratch. It is about converting an already existing document into a PDF file. It focuses on converting Microsoft Office files (Windows) to PDF, converting Microsoft Office files (MAC) to PDF, converting other files to PDF, converting paper forms to PDF, etc. It also focuses on how to combine multiple forms into a single document.

It presents simple views for addressing tasks and does not go into much detail. It shows one way of doing things and does not cover any exceptions or problems a user might encounter.

The three pages in the book on capturing data and handling it after is primitive and not useful instruction.

It does not show how to create a document from scratch. The chapter on using the Designer is only 50 pages and is also a high level view.

Being that I haven't upgraded my own instruction on Acrobat since version 6, I found the Adobe Acrobat 8 Classroom In A Book a great review of a great application. Yet another great textbook from the long line of support from Adobe.

I have used this book to create electronic forms. It is an excellent step by step book for anything you want to to in Professional 8. Professional 8 is a very robust product that is easy to work w ith even by a novice to Acrobat.

I found the tutorials easy to use and thought they taught how to use Acrobat very well. Some items may get repetitive if you have purchased other CS2 books, but I recommend it for anyone that purchases Adobe Acrobat CS2.

I recently purchased the Adobe Classroom in a Book for Acrobat 8. While it is a big book, 520 pages, it is thorough and complete. There is so much to learn but it is presented in a simple easy to understand manner!
Amazon's price was great and so was the prompt delivery!

Once again, this is the best guide to Acrobat 8 that is readily available. Unlike many of Adobe's other classroom in a book offerings, this one really excels at teaching the user how to use Acrobat 8.

You need to spend some time going back and forth between your computer and this study book but it explains pretty much all the nuts and the bolts of this program.