Welcome to Acrobat Pro
The Acrobat family of software has become a major collaboration, proofing and delivery environment. Originally a way to basically encapsulate print documents for printing and cross browser rendering it has grown into a deep application capable of importing Flash movies, sound files, as well as the usual text and image assets. Collections and Portfolios allow the designer to bring together and share groups of pdf files either for printing, collaboration (via Acrobat Connect), or online distribution. Here's a list of features in the current version.
Adobe Acrobat is a family of computer programs developed by Adobe Systems, designed to view, create, manipulate and manage files in Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF). Some software in the family, particularly the creating software, is commercial, and some is freeware. Adobe Reader (formerly Acrobat Reader) is available as a no-charge download from Adobe's web site, and allows the viewing and printing of PDF files. Acrobat and Reader are widely used as a way to present information with a fixed layout similar to a paper publication. from wikipedia
We will use a few of the many features in Acrobat Pro by way of introduction.
Acrobat Pro Tutorials
Go through some of the following tutorials before we begin working with Acrobat Pro in class.
Getting started understanding Acrobat Pro
- What is Acrobat? [3:59]
- Get an overview of what Acrobat 9 can do. Add and combine multimedia files. Create and review fillable forms and secure documents.
- Learn Acrobat 9 - listing from Adobe TV [various]
- Learn how to use Acrobat 9 Pro with tutorials selected by experts at Adobe.There's everything from Getting Started for beginners, to New Features, Workflows, and Overviews. 46 episodes.
- Acrobat Tips and Tricks - from Adobe TV [various]
- Get up to speed quickly on several key areas of Acrobat 9 with a comprehensive, in-depth library of video training tutorials by Adobe. 50 episodes.
- Customer Stories - using Acrobat 9 [various]
- So what can you do with Acrobat Pro? - take a look at these 6 stories, International Architect Music producer Insurance Company Law Accountancy Ship Registry
a little more on using Acrobat Pro...
- The Creative Workflow [10:46]
- Convert files or create portfolios. Review files, brand PDFs, add multimedia, and use print production tools.
- Inserting an FLV [4:32]
- This video tutorial shows you how to add a movie file to a Microsoft Word document and then convert the file to a PDF document.
- Team Collaboration - the future [6:02]
- Lori reviews the recently published report from Forrester Consulting on the Future of Collaboration commissioned by Adobe.
- The PDF Developer Junkie - [various] advanced
- Tips, tricks, examples and news from your Acrobat Technical Evangelist. Discover all the cool stuff you can do with PDF files if you learn just a little bit of scripting.
- Send me any good tutorials for Adobe Acrobat Pro you find useful.
Acrobat Pro Help
The online help guide for all of the Adobe applications we will use this semester is always available from within the specific application under the "Help" menu.
Adobe Acrobat Pro 9 has a "splash screen" which can be toggled (enabled/disabled) in the General category of the Preferences. Check or uncheck "show splash screen" under the Application Startup heading.
The direct link to Adobe Help on the Web for Acrobat Pro is: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Acrobat/9.0/Professional/index.html
Acrobat Pro Important Features
Portfolios: In Adobe® Acrobat® 9 Standard, you can easily create complex Adobe PDFs that include different types of files. You can package multiple files of various types into a PDF Portfolio, in which each file appears separately and has its own pagination. You can also convert and merge multiple files into a single merged PDF, in which converted documents flow into the PDF as sequential pages. Read more about PDF Portfolios and combined PDFs online
Collections: Read more how to Organize PDF collections online.
Collaboration: You can conduct reviews for many types of content by distributing an Adobe® PDF version of the source document for others to review. Reviewers add their comments to the PDF using commenting and markup tools. In shared reviews, reviewers can publish their comments in a shared workspace, and view and reply to the comments of other reviewers. Read more about Collaboration using Acrobat Pro 9 online.
Under the Hood: If you're interested in digging more deeply into Acrobat Pro take a close look at Actionscript 3.0 and the Acrobat Actionscript SDK. Read more about Actionscript 3.0 the Acrobat Actionscript SDK (there are a few examples and tutorials here) and then get Flex Builder 3.0 (or Flex 4 beta if your adventurous) then run through the 7 Tutorials from The PDF Developer Junkie - with Joel Geraci
