Acrobat 9 Pro Extended

All articles on this site are by Harry Skevington unless otherwise noted with another byline

OCTOBER 6, 2008

Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended
In Your System and on-line
I have used Adobe Acrobat for years. Most of us just use the free Acrobat Reader to open and read PDF files we find on the internet or those created and sent to us by others. My last full version was Adobe Acrobat 4. I created PDFs for reports and budgets for a non-profit where I do the marketing. It was fun, easy, and allowed those who did not have MS word or Excel to read those documents. When I received a copy of Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended I thought “Ok, an update.” Boy was I off.

Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended is not just an update. It is a whole new way of creating, working with, collaborating on, and sharing documents. Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended is not only software on your computer. It is web based as well. This is a completely new way to build and distribute information. When I installed Acrobat 9 Pro Extended I found it easy to create simple documents as I did with Version 4. When I went deeper into the software I came to a point where it was beyond my knowledge and background. That is when I asked for assistance from Adobe and their PR company. They were kind enough to setup a personal video conference with the product manager at Adobe. This gave me a broad overview of the many creative functions Adobe has added. They also discussed Adobe.com and its place in the new world of Adobe.

There are three versions of Adobe Acrobat 9; Standard ($299.00 or $99.00 Upgrade), Pro ($449.00 or $159.00 upgrade), and Pro Extended ($699.00 or 229.00 Upgrade). More details on the differences between these options can be found at (Version Matrix) to compare features on all versions.

This article will cover Acrobat 9 Pro Extended. Pro Extended is available for Windows only.

I had no problems when installing this software. My older versions of Acrobat and Acrobat Reader were removed without a hitch. Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended includes the basic Acrobat program with the Pro Extended additions, Adobe LiveCycle Designer, and Adobe Presenter. These programs combine to allow creation of documents well beyond the abilities of past versions of Acrobat. In the past PDFs that included documents, spreadsheets, and images were created as sort of 2 dimensional sheets of paper. Version 9 expands this to include videos, 3D, and maps. All of these features can then be combined into a PDF Portfolio that is compressed for easy transfer. Electronic reviewing of these documents can be done collaboratively by as many people as needed. Forms can be created so as to collect information for surveys interactively. All of this can be protected to any level you many require. The completed document or Portfolio can then be distributed to, and accessed by, any location that has the new Adobe Reader which is now available as a download. (CLICK HERE)

I first opened a number of my old PDFs created from 2000 to 2008 in Acrobat 9 Pro Extended and found they opened with no glitches. After separately downloading Adobe Reader I had the same results when clicking on these PDFs. All opened correctly. I did find one issue when attempting to open a financial statement provided on an internet site. Acrobat 9 would not open it no matter what I tried. I received a message that I needed Acrobat reader 8 or 9 to open this document. Upon contacting tech support at that institution I was asked to open the reader and go to EDIT/PREFFERENCES/INTERNET and UNCHECK The “Display PDF in Browser” option. I am not sure what removing the check on this option does to any other PDF reading requirements but it sure solved my problem.

It is impossible for me to include in-depth tests of all features included in Acrobat 9 Pro Extended so I am documenting my experience creating documents and a PDF Portfolio. My copy of Adobe Acrobat 9 came with a reviewer’s guide and a number of files created by Adobe. You would have to create your own files and place them in a folder for easy access. The reviewers guide walked me through the creation of my PDF Portfolio using their files. It was easy to do using their explicit instructions. I did take a few liberties like changing colors and font sizes. Starting from scratch will take some thought. Maybe even a layout plan. This would be similar to creating a website or a flyer containing text and graphics. There is no written manual included in the box. The help files included under Help/Adobe Acrobat Pro Extended Help are very comprehensive. Online support is also available under Help as well as is online user community.

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Once created you can publish and save it to a hard or thumb drive, send it via e-mail, or upload it to Acrobat.com by clicking “Share on Acrobat.com.” I saved the Portfolio first to my hard drive and then to Acrobat.com. I also sent a copy to my email address so I could test opening and viewing it in Adobe Reader 9. The actual files size of this example is 7.37 MB. If you want to view this very basic test portfolio that includes Text, Spreadsheets, Photos, Video and animations you will need to download Adobe Reader 9. The portfolio and Reader 9 are both available by clicking here.

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There are more advanced functions in Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended than I can include in this article. Suffice to say Acrobat 9 is an updated version of the Acrobat line. Acrobat 9 Pro Extended has capabilities way beyond the other versions. It is feature rich with as much attention paid to on-line functions as desktop/notebook ones. I suggest that most basic users of Acrobat will be happy with Acrobat 9 Standard and Adobe Reader 9. Before purchasing Acrobat you might want look at a comparison of the features available in each version CLICK HERE. Alone Acrobat 9 Pro Extended is now a major feature in my work area. As I use more features I will report here.

NOTE:
Acrobat.com is important in its own right. I will be doing an article on it soon.

FOR MORE INFO ON THIS AND OTHER ADOBE PRODUCTS CLICK HERE