Adobe says Acrobat 9 is good to go

Adobe on Wednesday released a revamped version of its Acrobat document creation software that includes built-in support for Flash and multimedia content.

Acrobat 9 lets users convert MOV and WMV files to Flash content that can be embedded within PDFs alongside audio content and even 3D models. The free Acrobat Reader 9 will play the movies, eliminating the need to open other media players.

Adobe released a beta test version of Acrobat 9 earlier this month, along with a new online service called Acrobat.com that includes a Web-based word processor, conferencing and remote access, PDF creation, and 5 gigabytes of file storage.

In combination with the Acrobat.com service, Acrobat 9 lets multiple users collaborate in real-time online to share documents.

The new PDF Portfolios feature in Acrobat 9 lets users drag and drop documents and multimedia content into a single PDF document, then choose from myriad layout and presentation options.

Acrobat Pro Extended 9 will enable maps to be marked up, preserving latitude and longitude.

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Mapping features only in Acrobat Pro Extended 9 preserve geospatial coordinates and enable users to mark locations and measure distances.

The new Acrobat will take snapshots of Web pages and convert entire pages or chunks of them to a PDF that preserves links and animation.

Developers can tweak layouts with Flex Builder 3 or Flash CS3.

Acrobat 9 comes in three flavors: Standard at $299 (or $99 to upgrade), Pro for $449 (or $159 to upgrade), and Pro Extended for $699 (or $229 to upgrade). Pro Extended also comes with Adobe Presenter, which plugs into Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 for adding interactivity to presentations.

Adobe said that Adobe Reader 9, the free PDF document reader, will be available early next month.

CNET's Elsa Wenzel contributed to this report.