Adobe Acrobat 5.0 Upgrade [Old Version]

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Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• Note: Gift-wrapping is not available for this item.
• ASIN: B00005ATSU
• Item model number: 22001440
• Date first available at Amazon.com: March 12, 2001
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #8,035 in Software (See Bestsellers in Software)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #15 in	Software > Web Development > Internet Utilities > Electronic Publishing
  #55 in	Software > Web Development > Professional Development

• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Review
Any business that requires documents to be shared, reviewed, and edited across broad networks will undoubtedly benefit from Adobe Acrobat 5.0. If you've never used Acrobat before, you'll be amazed at how easy it is to convert Office documents and Web pages to PDF files (portable document format). If you already use Acrobat, new features and enhancements--including the ability to upload documents to Web sites and intranets--make this version a worthwhile upgrade.

Installation is quick and easy; within 15 minutes of opening the box we were saving Web pages as PDF files and adding comments to our documents. New users may want to take a tour around the help sections (either online Help or tool tips) to get acquainted with the program. In addition, checking out the help section will ensure you don't miss out on some of the more hidden features within the application, such as color management and timesaving Windows and Mac shortcuts.

One of the most important new features of version 5.0 is the ability to develop new documents from PDF files. You can now save the PDF file to Rich Text Format (RTF), and then edit the document using your word processor. Another important new feature is the ability to create interactive forms, which actually look a lot like their paper counterparts. And once you figure out how to upload these forms to your company intranet, you can share them with all relevant team members. Team members can even sign these forms, using a password-protected digital signature.

As always, the ability to comment on documents and Web pages remains an important reason to use Acrobat. A toolbar on the left-hand side gives users easy access to the list of comment tools, which range from highlighting tools, note boxes, pencil and line tools, and strikeout tools which let you erase lines of text. Once you've marked up a file or Web page, you can send the file to team members, business contacts and clients. As long as they have the Acrobat Reader (available free from Adobe's Web site), they should be able to read these files. And Acrobat retains the quality of your documents when you print them, so you don't have any nasty surprises when you pick up your documents from the printer.

Companies with employees in different physical locations can only benefit from Acrobat 5.0. While version 4.0 is obviously still a strong and very useful product, upgrading to Acrobat 5.0 promises a host of Internet-ready new features designed to accompany your business to the next level of high-speed communication. --Gisele Toueg--This review refers to the full version.

Amazon.com Review
Adobe Acrobat 5.0 is PDF-creation software, direct from the company that first established the PDF standard. PDF stands for portable document format, and it remains the best way to format documents so they can be read by anyone on any platform. Version 5.0 brings significant improvements, particularly with regard to its interaction with other leading software, such as the Microsoft Office suites and programs such as Photoshop and Illustrator.

Installation is easy. Included in the installation is a function button added to Office applications such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. When you've written a document in these programs, simply click the PDF button on the toolbar and it will guide you through saving it as a PDF. Anyone with Acrobat Reader--free and available for download from Adobe's Web site--can view the documents.

You can also upload these documents to Internet sites, or onto networks. This is a key feature of this version. This Web-savvy function means you can post documents on an intranet or a network, and other users can simultaneously view, write on, edit, highlight, and stick notes on it using Acrobat's tools in their browser windows. This has obvious merit for anyone running meetings where not all attendees can be physically present.

You can place graphics from leading software products such as Illustrator and Photoshop into these PDFs, and when clicked on later, they will launch the original creation program if editing is needed. You can also create and add digital signatures to the PDF file, and, once the key is exchanged with your chosen recipient, security of the documents will be assured, as only the recipient can open them.

All in all, Acrobat 5.0 should be an essential toolbox element for anyone who needs to share documents. It is easy to use, creates extremely high-quality items--whether business spreadsheets, brochures for customers (it maintains the integrity of the onscreen version on printers, guaranteeing that the look you intended is rendered to a high quality) or Web sites--and ensures that security is maintained through signatures, and through the fact that only the creator can edit the original file. --Alison Jardine

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Beware if you are upgrading from Version 3, June 2, 2001

By	R. Barker (West Covina, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

57 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Much needed upgrade, April 4, 2001

By A Customer

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.

33 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Eliminates paper capture functionality, April 25, 2001

By	Daniel Mall "engineersoftware" (San Gabriel, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.