Studies show we’re using more paper than ever thanks to the Internet revolution. Everyone has a printer on his or her desk and they like to print what’s on their screen.
One attempt to fight back however is Adobe Acrobat 5.0. The software can create and modify digital documents that look exactly like their paper counterparts.
It’s a technology that is particularly useful for filing documents, especially in an era when data storage technology is one of the cheapest components on a computer.
Tools like Adobe Acrobat make you think the paperless office just might work some day.
If you’re not familiar with Adobe Acrobat, perhaps your first encounter with the technology has been with PDF files. These are the data files created by the package. To view them you need Adobe Reader, which is a free download from www.adobe.com.
Often you’ll encounter these files on the Web. They’ll download and then a plug-in in your Internet browser will open to either display the file in your browser, or in a separate Adobe Reader window.
The clever feature of PDF files is that users could have different operating systems or computers with different specifications and still see the product as it originally appeared when it was created. The fonts, layout and scale are all preserved.
Businesses that use the Web and e-mail to distribute important documents can use PDF files to avoid print jobs and slow snail-mail distribution.
Adobe Acrobat 5.0 – the PDF file creation and editing tool – is a somewhat complex product that’s not particularly easy to use out of the box. However those that have the need can learn its nuances to make it work for them if they’re willing to invest a little time.
The easiest way to create a PDF file is to use Adobe Distiller Assistant, one of the utilities that comes in the box.
It installs like a printer driver. When you want to create a PDF file, you simply select Adobe Distiller from your printer list in any program – such as Microsoft Word, for example – and print to Distiller. It outputs the document you’re working on to a PDF file on your hard drive, which can then be distributed.
PDF files range widely in size from a couple of kilobytes to hundreds of megabytes or larger. It all depends on the source material. Adobe Acrobat 5.0 does a nice job of trimming down the file size. For example a brochure in a desktop publishing application that is many megabytes in size can sometimes be reduced to mere kilobytes making it easy to share across the Internet.
Nevertheless, Acrobat can’t perform magic, so don’t expect a document filled with high resolution photos to fit on a floppy disk.
Team collaboration is one of the strengths of the product. Acrobat can be used by several file reviewers to add comments to a document.
Tools that work with the PDF format continue to evolve. Adobe has introduced a new version of Adobe Reader for the Pocket PC, a line of handheld computers from Compaq, Hewlett Packard and Casio that runs a Microsoft operating system created for portable devices. The software is in testing this fall, but a public beta version of the software is available for download for free from www.adobe.com.
It will be made commercially available by year end.
The program allows Pocket PC owners to read documents in their original format. Documents can also be re-flowed to fit the width of a smaller handheld screen.
