The New Adobe Acrobat 9.0 Professional

The New Adobe Acrobat 9.0 has some new and very interesting features. Most of the features are incremental in nature, with some excellent new additions like Adobe Portfolio (more later..). Acrobat 9.0 comes in four versions, including the Acrobat 9 Pro version that ships in Creative Suite 4.

The free Adobe Reader is the most minimal version; the three commercial versions, Acrobat 9 Standard, Acrobat 9 Pro, and Acrobat 9 Pro Extended add various levels of authoring ability.

The Standard version creates PDF files, PDF Portfolios, and fillable PDF forms. The Pro version adds a wide range of collaboration and document-compare features.

The Pro Extended version has everything in Pro as well as the ability to embed standard video formats into PDF files, create interactive presentations, and create and manage 3D PDF files. For many authors of PDF output, the ability to embed video formats will be a major incentive for upgrading from the Acrobat Pro in CS4 to Acrobat Pro Extended.

Software Enhancements and New Features
Admittedly, there are quite a few, both on the technical side of high-end print production, and the more creative side, such as with the new Portfolio feature. In Acrobat terms, a portfolio is any collection of files that are then automatically displayed in portfolio-like templates.

Thanks to the new Flash support in PDF, a designer can assemble a group of PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, InDesign, JPEG, and Flash media files into the Portfolio window of Acrobat. You choose various layouts and preferences for how these files will be displayed, and then save the portfolio as a PDF file. Clients or colleagues can view your portfolio (including videos) with the latest Acrobat Reader.

Some other new features are:

• Combine videos, movies, simulations and 3D objects into a single compressed PDF Portfolio


• Personalize PDF Portfolios with your branding and choice of navigation


• Include searchable interactive maps


• Insert FLV or H.264 video for direct playback
  
• Capture web pages as rich, dynamic PDF files


• Convert PDF files back to Word 2007 format


• Create fillable forms with Live Cycle Designer, and Track forms


• Use Acrobat.com free of charge, to store and share documents, document reviews, etc.