Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Professional Upgrade from Standard Version 4-7 Description:

Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Professional Upgrade from Standard Version 4-7 review:
3 stars (Great functionality but misleading samples and slow speed) - Acrobat 7 introduces much new functionality in both document review and forms creation. I found the document review functionality to be very well done and very powerfull. It has great depth as a review and markup tool. It is in the area of forms creation with Designer 7 that I found problems. First I found much of the information misleading. I was interested in some specific functionality that PRO was supposed to turn on for Viewer only users. After activating that functionality and finding that it still didn't work with Viewer, I learned that it wasn't just the PRO version of Acrobat that was needed but another Adobe server product costing tens of thousands of dollars. Kind of like giving someone a key to the bank when everything of value is stored in the vault. The second issue was one of speed. I took an existing form created in MS Word and converted it to Acrobat. That process worked well but when I added dynamic elements things slowed to a crawl. Dynamic elements are things like, areas that expaned as users type or checkboxes that show or hide form areas as needed. Everything worked, but some elements took 10 seconds to refresh on a 2.4 gig computer. Lastly a warning about the new file format used by Acrobat 7. The forms functionality provided by Designer 7 changes the Acrobat format into an entirely new file type. As such that new file type does not work with many (any ?) exiting Acrobat compatible server products. In fact it even prevents Acrobat Pro 7 from doing things like batch combining of Acrobat files. Time will most probably solve both the speed and compatibility issues. I just wish that software manufactures would provide a document showing the pluses and minus offered when upgrading to a major new release like Acrobat 7.
1 stars (Hair-pulling Conflicts with Word) - I've wasted hours and frustration trying to figure out why I kept losing my changes to MS Word's AutoText and normal.dot template everytime I closed Word. Two long calls to Microsoft's tech support could not identify the problem. Next stop, my local smart computer guy, who sniffed a software conflict and through process of elimination named the culprit: Adobe Acrobat Pro 7.0.



SHAME on Adobe for releasing a product without vetting its compatibility with the most commonplace software on the planet! Even after installing Acrobat Pro 7.0's prodigious updates, the software remains buggy. If you dig, you'll find Adobe offers a complex fix of sorts (and refers you back to Microsoft -- a useless exercise and cynical deflection of blame for what is Adobe's fault.) A search turned up better work-arounds on Villanova University's site.



That chills it for me. In the future, I'll look for alternate products to Adobe's wherever they don't have a stranglehold on the market.
1 stars (Massive compatibility issues - Beware!) - That's right if you have fillable forms created in a previous version and expect to change them, your out of luck. I thought compatibility was the cornerstone of Acrobat.



Our firm does over $300 Million worth of business a year. We thought that Acrobat Professional ability to create fillable forms that could be shared, updated, and filled out by clients was a blessing. We not have dozens of worthless forms. And then there's the embarrassment when a client with Acrobat 7 can't fill out a form. THINK OF THE COST!



Adobe's site doesn't even mention the issue (although, their site search and help system is so poor that it may be their somewhere - who knows.)



At first, I thought I was doing something wrong. But, when I called support I was told that forms were not compatible. The service person then told me that she thought there might be a fix. However, without a service plan we'd have to pay to talk to Technical Support. We paid good money for this software (we buy multiple licenses) and only had this version for two days.



Considering the magnitude of this issue. I'm guessing there are other major problems with this release of Acrobat..



Adobe should fire its entire staff of software developers and the arrogant managers who let this software hit the market without providing fully functional compatibility.