Response to MacWorld's: First Look Acrobat 9

I haven't actually had a chance to get my hands on the new Acrobat 9 yet - still, there is a lot of pre-release info on Adobe's website, and lots of online pre-views: this is a response to Macworld's  First Look: Adobe Acrobat 9.

>>> Despite Adobe's marketing promotion of A-9's many new features, it seems that not all is gold that glitters. Numerous "new" features, are re-packaged from AC-8, with a little eye-candy added, or slightly tweaked UI improvements. This is not to say that those changes are not welcome: I am sure they will make work easier for many people, and some additions (e.g., forms routing and collection) although they come to a Mac a little later than expected (compared to Win, in A-8) but, as they say, better late than never... Still the issue seems to be not the feature set itself (any improvement is, after all, an improvement), but the fact that Acrobat 9's release is out-of-sync with Adobe CS-3 release cycle, so if you upgrade now (CS3 > CS3.3 = $160), and then upgrade to CS-4 when it is released in the winter (anticipated, not announced date, with CS-4 public Betas widely circulated now), you willl effectively be buying A-9 twice...

Perenson's article re-published on MacWorld, seems to be based primarily on Adobe's official press releases, and white papers. I always wish PC-mag used reviewers who actually extensively used, and knew a little better, the software they are reviewing: contrary to her review, neither Portfolios (formerly Packages), nor Compare ARE new (adding a "walk-through wizard" to Compare, makes it easier, and prettier, but not new). Portfolio doesn't look like "Spaces" at all (at least to this Mac user), but it mimics cover-flow design quite closely. Some features, not even mentioned in the review (e.g., form routing and tracking) are new on the Mac, but most of their functionality was available in A-8's LiveCycle Designer on Win, and only now arrives to Mac version, and I am not even sure that all of its functionality got ported (haven't had a chance to try it out yet, but it's a welcome addition, especially combined with acrobat.com hosted service,, which looks GREAT, and deserves a separate review, later).

Direct Flash-video conversion (from other formats) is very much a welcome feature that will make lots of people happy, but it's only available in A9-Extended-Win, not available on the Mac. Nor is Acrobat 9 Presenter - and interactive conversion utility for P-Point presentations - unfortunate and surprising omission, given potential usefulness of this feature in the education market that uses Macs quite extensively - this Win-only feature looks very similar to a product called Articulate Presenter, that has existed for several years now on Win. (click on image - left - to see Adobe A-9-Extended promo; and choose chapter 1.2 for Presentations overview)

For a more detailed, useful comparison A8 > A9 on the Mac, you may want to check out Ron Freedom's preview on Apple Insider.

Comments

[Leonard Rosenthol]

I agree that MacWorld/PCWorld review was pretty bad and most certainly written by someone without a foothold in reality. Unfortunately, you too are doing the same thing - making comments without actually seeing and/or understanding what we've done with Acrobat 9.

Portfolios are COMPLETELY NEW in Acrobat 9. Though they build (in a minor way) on the packages of Acrobat 8 - it's like comparing the Concorde to the Wright brother's plane. Sure, one evolved from the other but...Also, the ONE VIEW that they show may look like CoverFlow - but that's just one of many possible looks to your data!

Compare for Acrobat 9, on the other hand, shares NOTHING with that of Acrobat 8 - other than the name. Acrobat 9's Compare goes beyond anything else in the industry for document comparison technology - ANY TYPE of document comparisons.

All of the new form technology is NOT a port from Windows - it's stuff that is, again, quite new for BOTH Mac and Windows in this release.

I think you, and others, will be quite enamored with Acrobat 9 when you receive your copy - and I look forward to an updated post at that time.

Leonard Rosenthol
PDF Standards Evangelist
Adobe Systems