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PDF with Acrobat 4 (Visual QuickStart Guide) First Edition
- ISBN-100201354616
- ISBN-13978-0201354614
- EditionFirst Edition
- PublisherPeachpit Pr
- Publication dateJuly 12, 1999
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions7.5 x 0.75 x 9.25 inches
- Print length208 pages
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
PDF with Acrobat includes plenty of illustrations--you'll find it easy to follow along with procedures as you match what's on your screen to the book's screen captures. The author does a good job of explaining the Acrobat utilities as they exist in both Windows and Macintosh environments, providing screen shots from both operating systems when he explains operations (like printing) that differ on the two platforms. The only fault is the lack of a companion CD-ROM containing Acrobat Reader. But the inconvenience is minor since you can get the program free of charge on the Web. --David Wall
Topics covered: Acrobat Reader, Acrobat Distiller, Acrobat PDF Writer, and Acrobat Capture, as well as the Acrobat editor itself.
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Product details
- Publisher : Peachpit Pr; First Edition (July 12, 1999)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 208 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0201354616
- ISBN-13 : 978-0201354614
- Item Weight : 11.8 ounces
- Dimensions : 7.5 x 0.75 x 9.25 inches
- Customer Reviews:
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If this resonates with you, perhaps the book will as well. I have been using Acrobat 4.0 for about a year, and found the book oocasionally internally inconsistent -- and rather uneven. Parts are written at a level for a basic clerical person, and others presuppose a background in the array of Adobe graphics software products (for example, there is a full chapter devoted to "Working with Adobe Illustrator") and in printing terminology.
I had bought the book mainly because I wanted a physical book to refer to instead of the on-screen help that Adobe provides with Acrobat 4.0, and because I needed some help with Adobe Forms -- which Adobe added to Portable Document Format (pdf) in version 1.2 (Acrobat 3.0). Since this book addresses Acrobat 4.0, which supports pdf version 1.3, I expected to at least find mention of Adobe's fdf extension here. After all, the capability does come on the Acrobat 4.0 CD-ROM! Instead I found exactly 12 pages devoted to forms with no mention at all of fdf or forms interaction more complex than you might expect to find in a template-driven web site creation program.
Under these circumstances I should not have been surprised to find that the authors tell MS Office users the hard way to use Acrobat. They make no mention of the capability of creating Adobe Acrobat documents via a click on the Adobe icon right on the Word screen, or the specific line to create Adobe Acrobat pdf files in the "file" menu on both Word and Excel, taking you instead through the old-fashioned way: using your printer dialog to set up a "printer" whereby you create a pdp file via a ps file in several steps.
There were also a few examples of what I initially viewed as errors of fact, but in reviewing the book recognize as overgeneralization rather than outright errors. I suppose any author is entitled to a few of these.
I tried to figure out who might REALLY benefit from this book. If you're heavily into printing on paper and non-web oriented desktop publishing, and view the most serious industry competition as a battle between QuarkXPress and Adobe products, maybe this is for you. If you live in an Adobe world, your PC isn't networked (so you exchange files via "sneaker brigade"), you don't use the web much, and for the most part you have avoided Microsoft and UNIX software, again, maybe this is a book you would find helpful.
If you use Microsoft Office 2000, or most any UNIX-based software, or are coming at the subject from a web orientation, you may find yourself as frustrated with this book as I was. Only that I did pick up (buried deep in paragraphs, generally) four little bits of information I may be able to use in the future kept me from rating this book one star. And really, finding four usable pieces of information in an entire book didn't make the book a particularly good use of time or money for me.
I wasn't convinced that the authors had spent enough time getting to know Acrobat 4, which is a good product.
This book in particular is great for users and developers of PDF documents that are definitely experienced in using the Acrobat 4.0 product, but just need a little help to get some of the tedious and quirky tasks done. The first time user may benefit, but will be lost in the book until they start interacting with the software on their own.
I am a software developer and I have a whole set of the "visual quickstart" guides on my shelf. I use at least one of them everyday. A definite buy for software developers!
To be fair, even Adobe can't make much of a job with their own in-house publications and their included help-guide, which, although comprehensive, is incredibly irritating to wade through.
Someday - Somebody - Somewhere, will be able to produce a book, or books that will actually tell us how to use all those great applications without us having to sweat blood.
Meanwhile... I'm not holding my breath.

