Adobe Acrobat adds Vista flexibility, remote printing

With Acrobat 8.1 installed, a new tab appears in Word 2007.

Adobe Acrobat 8, which shipped two months before the January release of Windows Vista, can now run on Vista and Citrix 64-bit systems. Acrobat and Reader version 8.1 enhancements will download with Adobe update notifications and can be found at Adobe's Web site.

There's also new integration with Microsoft Office 2007, such as the capability to create a PDF file by right-clicking the mouse from within supported applications. Microsoft Outlook 2007 can now preview multipage PDF files within e-mail messages, just as it already displays Office documents. And Mac users will be able to view Flash movies within Adobe Acrobat and Reader 8.1 instead of using QuickTime.

In addition, a "Send to FedEx Kinko's" button for remote printing is being added to Acrobat Reader 8.1 this month. This feature would allow, say, a business traveler en route from the airport to a client meeting to send a PDF file to Kinko's while waiting at baggage claim, and then pick up the printed pages at the shop nearest the destination.

The file menu in Reader 8.1 has a Kinko's printing option.

Hopefully Adobe's updates will fix some bugs and make the software run more smoothly. Acrobat Reader may display some lovely looking documents, but opening the program can still be a clunky and intrusive interruption to Web surfing.

[jelloburn]

Acrobat Reader is a joke

Perhaps one of my favorite parts about moving to Mac OS X is to
not have to deal with Acrobat Reader when viewing PDF files.
Acrobat Reader has always taken WAY too long to load, eats
resources, and installs all kinds of files all over your system
(including startup items) that shouldn't be necessary.

I like being able to view a PDF file within Safari without having to
wait 30-45 seconds for Reader to start up and then download
the file.

On my Windows machines, I use a free program that opens PDFs
in half the time Reader does, and manages to maintain the
integrity of the file just fine. Adobe needs to provide some
substantial reasons as to why this particular piece of software is
so bloated and offers very little more than its free competition. I
don't consider 3D to be a substantial (or necessary)
improvement. Provide a stripped down version that will just read
and print them, and then they might be on to something.

[rcrusoe]

. . . a really bad joke

I totally agree. We replaced Adobe with Foxit last year and have not had a single complaint.

Until they put Adobe Reader on a major diet, and stop their practice of loading a bunch of crap on startup, Reader is staying on our "do not install" list right next to RealPlayer.

[mjm01010101]

I'll tell you why

Those free products have terrible printing and WYSIWYG support. They have these small niggling bugs like dithering, or lack of really refined display or print controls. ever used those readers in an enterprise? How was support for them?

Acrobat 6 probably was the most bloated acrobat out there, and since then they have only improved it. 8 is a great product, and it actually performs pdf validation, which is sorely needed in a world where Adobe let pdf free upon the world and there are a lot of products that create pdf's in a corrupted format. 8 will help address that.