New and Improved Adobe Acrobat X

Adobe Acrobat remains one of the best kept secrets in the software industry. While many users, use the ubiquitous Adobe Acrobat Reader to open, print and display files on the web- many are unaware of the engine that makes this all happen. I have been fortunate enough to be provided with a Reviewer Copy of Adobe Acrobat X Pro which was recently released into the marketplace. As a long time user of Adobe Acrobat I was looking forward to working with the latest version of Acrobat to see what new and innovative features were build into this version. Adobe Acrobat X is now available for both Windows and Macintosh computers and builds on the long tradition of Acrobat as easy to use tool to create and publish PDF files.

The most significant change that you will see when you start up Adobe Acrobat X is in the interface. If you have used any of Adobe's newer applications you will feel right at home. Adobe has really done their homework and analyzed how users are most likely to use Acrobat and reconfigured the menus. You will notice on the right had side of the screen three different tabs, Tools, Comments, and Share. Clicking on any of these items will reveal a Pane with the associated tools and features. Being a long time user of Acrobat it was always a challenge to find where I might find the tool that I was looking for. Having the new interface now makes it a cinch to know exactly where to find something. The new interface is very intuitive and makes it easy for you to be as efficient as possible when you are looking for the right tool. The simplicity of the interface is going to be a hallmark of this version and one that I know I will enjoy using.

Creating PDF files is a lot easier to create with the new version of Adobe Acrobat X. Simply select the Create button from the menu and you have your choice of how you would like to create your PDF. One of the areas that has been vastly improved is creating a PDF from Scanner. I found that Adobe Acrobat X was much faster at creating the PDF and the finished PDF file size was much smaller than in the past. There were significant improvements in the Optical Character Recognition Engine which would account for better recognition of scanned material. Having a fully search-able PDF document with a small footprint really foots the bill for me.

One of my favorite features which was introduced in version 9 of Acrobat is the concept of a PDF Portfolio. This is an extremely powerful tool  and one that I feel has the potential to take this product far both in business and education sectors. As the term would implies a PDF Portfolio is a way for you to include a range of different types of  files and media formats and wrap it up in a PDF envelope. With a PDF Portfolio one could include a Word, Excel, Audio, Video, PDF documents and convert it into one single PDF file that can be delivered to your client or student. When they receive the PDF Portfolio you can package it and brand it with your company's colors or logo. Your recipient then receive I highly stylized PDF portfolio with easy to use navigation that can be opened with the free Adobe Acrobat Reader (version 9 or X) and presented with the files in the order that you wold like to present them in. Perfect for a business or educational portfolio which displays a range of different content and media. Adding video and Flash content is easier than ever and allows you to bring your documents to life with video playing inside your PDF portfolios.

Sending your PDF documents just got a lot easier with the advent of the new Adobe Service called Adobe SendNow Online. Adobe SendNow Online. is now integrated within Adobe Acrobat X and can be accessed from the Share tab. Adobe SendNow Online, as you can tell from the name, stores your files in the cloud and provides a link to your PDF that you can email to your recipients right within Adobe Acrobat X. If you have ever had the problem of sharing large PDF files via email, then you will really like how Adobe handles this new feature. Simply enter the recipients email address and they will receive a link to download the file. It is really that simple and you can control how much time they have before the link expires and receive delivery receipts when it is downloaded. The integration of Adobe SendNow Online with Adobe Acrobat X is really seamless and you will be asking yourself how did you ever live without it.

Working with Adobe Acrobat as much as I do, I am extremely pleased with this upgrade and the thought that went into making this easier and more intuitive to use. Right out of the box you will find Adobe Acrobat X a pleasure to work with. With a little time you will find that Adobe Acrobat X is one of thiose must have applications that you will turn to for all of your creative needs.

PS: Look for another post on the Action Wizard and Forms coming soon

Export as Mindjet Player Tip- Linking Documents

I for one am having a great deal of fun experimenting with the new Export as Mindjet Player feature that can be found in MindManager 8. I have begun to export all of my MindManager maps to this format so that I can share them with my students on their Blackboard accounts. I have all of my lectures mapped out with links to web sites which I use for every class. Back in the days of MindManager 7, I would export my MindManager maps to PDF and post them to Blackboard, but the links were no longer live which always presented a problem. Now with the new Export as Mindjet Player I can put the maps on Blackboard and ask my students to open it and they can quickly jump from web site to web site as we talk about different topics. This has been a tremendous time saver for me. If you have taught using the internet- it is cumbersome when you have to stop and write the URL on the board and invariably some of your students are going to misspell the link and have trouble getting to where you want them to be.

One of the limitation of the first release of Export as Mindjet Player is that you can not embed your attachments. After thinking about this for a little while, I realized that while you can't attach documents that are stored on your computer, however, what about your documents that are stored on Google Docs or Acrobat.com? Instead of attaching documents to my MindManager maps I could simply hyperlink them to my documents. Yes- this does limit the number of attachments but it gets the job done. It was certainly worth trying and in fact my solution does work. Here is how to do it. In Google Docs open up your document that you want to be able to share and click the Share tab and select Publish as Web page. This will automatically create a unique URL that you can share with other to access your Google Docs. Now just create a link in Mindjet MindManager with that unique URL and you are ready to go. Remember you can also upload your Microsoft Word documents and bring them into Google Docs and be able to accomplish the same thing.

I have been using Acrobat.com for a lot of the consulting work that I am doing and it is just as easy to link your documents (Word, Excel, PDF's, etc) in your Acrobat.com account to your MindManager 8 maps and then Export as Mindjet Player and retain the attachments. In fact you will find the process a lot easier. Once you go to the MyFiles directory- simply select the file you want to link and make sure that you have selected Open Access which will let you share your files with others. Now simply click on the Copy URL button. Once you are back in MindManager 8 select the topic you want to link it to and bring up the Add Hyperlink and paste the link in. Now when you Export as Mindjet Player you will be able to access your documents from anywhere when you are connected to the internet.

While I hope that at some point in time we will be able to attach documents that can be embedded into the Mindjet Player for now this is a workaround that should serve us well for maps that we would like to share with others. Let me know what you think of this strategy. You can preview the file that I created by clicking here.

Go Green with Forms with Adobe Acrobat 9

In my previous post I wrote about the new Portfolio feature in Adobe Acrobat that is bound to change the way you think about sending PDF files. In this blog installment I want to talk to you about how both business and school organizations can cut down on their use of paper and reduce their carbon footprint by using the Forms feature in Adobe Acrobat 9. If you work in any organization you know that there is a form for just about everything and anything that takes place in your office. Forms for travel Expenses, Sick Days, Vacation Requisitions, Tuition Reimbursement and the list goes on and on. I'm sure you know the drill- get the paper form fill it out and send it via inter-office mail. Or in some instances the form may be posted on your organization's website but you still need to print it out and fill it in and send it to the appropriate office. That seems like a lot of work, and if you multiply that by how many employees are in your organization that sure is a lot time and paper that is being used in the process.

Using the Forms feature in Adobe Acrobat 9 will not only make your organizations form flow more efficient-but can significantly reduce the amount of paper and time that it takes to complete and route forms. If you haven't looked at the Forms feature in Adobe Acrobat 9, I suggest that you do. You will find it very easy to create forms from your existing paper based forms, electronic forms that you may have in Word, or from a Acrobat PDF template. If your existing form is paper based you can scan it into Adobe Acrobat 9 and have Acrobat convert it to a fill in blank form for completing with Acrobat Reader. The process is very quick and within minutes you will have an electronic form ready to be filled in. If you are not familiar with the process you can use the Forms Wizard to walk you through the process for creating your form. Within minutes you will have your form ready to go. Once your form is complete the next decision you need to make is how are you planning to distribute the form? You have several options-you can distribute it on Acrobat.com, as an email, and to an internal server. Using the free Acrobat.com website makes it a cinch to distribute forms and all of the heavy lifting for distributing the forms is done within Adobe Acrobat 9. You can get a free Acrobat.com account and use it to distribute your forms-however, bear in mind that if you are dealing with information of a confidential nature you should consider hosting the form on your internal server. Once the form is distributed you can email it to select individuals or have it available on your website for completing on line with Acrobat Reader 9. The real beauty of using Adobe Acrobat 9 Extended is the ability to use the Track Forms feature to view the Responses. When you initiate this feature Adobe Acrobat 9 will go out to your server or to Acrobat.com and pull in all the completed forms. If you have never used this feature it is a very fast and efficient way to collect your information without the need to print out forms on paper. This can quickly change your entire work flow and help your organization move towards moving forms in a paper-less fashion. Now imagine the cost saving and just how good you will feel that you are doing something good for the environment!. If you want to try it out you can certainly download Acrobat 9 Trial version from the Adobe web site.

To see what it is like to fill out the form, you can complete this Contact Form and send it to me with the Adobe Acrobat Reader. To download the Contact Form click on the Menu in the Thumbnail below and download the form. After filling in the Form just click on the Submit Form button which is located on the top of the Acrobat Reader.