The short story: Acrobat’s taking a pretty good direction, but not free from install bloat and pains. I’d wait for the next version until when I hope all these idiosynchrasies have been sorted out.
The short story: Pretty good direction, but not free from install bloat and pains. I’d wait for the next version until when I hope all these idiosynchrasies have been sorted out.
The general direction of Adobe’s efforts with Acrobat is admirable, so it is a bit disappointing to see them roll out such a half-baked product.
P.S.If you are not happy with Adobe Acrobat 6.0, and want to revert back to Adobe Acrobat 5.1 etc, then use this Alternate Acrobat Reader Download Link from Adobe.
WHAT’S USEFUL —
- Fabulous document review capabilities — you can edit directly into the underlying text, approve, then export them back into Word.
- More importantly, Acrobat sets up an excellent document-review work flow that works with Outlook and other mail programs to track who has received the document and responded.
- To simplify editing Acrobat transmits the PDF to the reviewers, who send back only their annotations. Acrobat then creates a compound document in which you can review all comments at once or individual comments by reviewer. With Word, you’d have to send everyone the same file, then compile the various changes.
- In MSIE, Acrobat 6.0 can quickly convert Web pages into PDF, creating either one composite file or separate files for each page.
- The generated PDFs maintain most HTML links and it can also store rich media files such as Flash and animated GIFs!!
- From Office documents, the bookmarking is now better (what a relief that is)
- The compressed converted files are smaller. This becomes less evident though if you have textboxes and graphics in your documents, which we usually have.
BUT, CAVEATS:
- The beast is a pain to install. I downloaded the “Tryout” version from the website, and my Acrobat does not work anymore. It will not convert a simple Word document (only formatting) due to some printer error. Not sure if this happens with every installation of this software but I am fairly technically savvy, have tried reinstalling, changing printer settings to FILE, etc etc. No go.
- It took over all my Acrobat 5 associations and registry settings, so remember that you cannot uninstall it and “go back” to Acrobat 5.
- The software is Bloated with a mega-capital B. I use a recent Pentium IV with 1 gig of RAM, and after the install of Acrobat 6, the thing practically crawls.
- Searching: Who needs the right-hand side navigation? Sure it “looks” cool to some people, but I’d much rather have the simple (and 10 times faster) Ctrl-F Windows pop-up box, as it is in every Windows app.
WHAT TO DO IF INSTALL CAUSES GRIEF:
- Don’t install. Wait for the next version. (My general recommendation.)
- If things have already gone wrong, try to change the “PORT” on the Adobe PDF PRINTER settings in Control Panel to FILE:, then try printing out again (will ask you for filename, give a file path, e.g., c:\1.ps). Once the POSTSCRIPT file is generated, you can run it through the Acrobat Distiller to generate the PDF file.
ALL IN ALL:
If you use a supercomputer and are hard-pressed to upgrade immediately (e.g., if you use a version earlier than 5.x) than this may be worth it. But if you are at the 5 levels already, wait for the next version. Hopefully Adobe will have figured out the bloat and the install issues by then.
21 Comments
Just an addendum. Adobe apparently has a pretty friendly forum with experts helping out lost souls. If you run into trouble with printing from Word, there’s a pretty detailed help outline at
http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?13@7.SxqQbnCLDdg.0@.2cce187b/1
HTH.
If you use the PDF format to deliver online content which is protected this new version is fabulous. Some of the workflow functionality is simply amazing. But yes, it is slow. What caliber machine do you use?
You need to be logged in to the Adobe forums, btw.
Is there a reason government agencys use so many PDF files? Yes! Its slow, bloated and ineffecient… just like them. The only time I click a PDF link is when I am absolutely certain it is information I want or need. Am I alone in this?
Hi Owork,
I don’t like PDFs for general use as well, but they do have some good applications.
Government forms for instance, driver’s license application and such, are very convenient if submitted by candidates in a standardized format that the receiver of the form can then file and analyze, just like a regular form in off-line world would have been.
I also like PDFs to be used for “white papers” type solutions, when I want to download a lot of information in ONE FILE that I can CARRY with me. Using an HTML page for this purpose is unwieldy, and not to mention unstandardized because it may look different on different people’s computers.
PDF is actually quite a handy file format if used for the right purposes and in the right way. I think.
Yes, I’ve suspected as much. Adobe have been the main drivers for microsoft and intel in their battle for “hearts and minds” to get you to upgrade old equipment. The argument goes “Well I kn ow its slow but I just need a faster processor, extra memory etc” to run photoshop, or adobe product x.
I have previously been running acrobat 5.0 on a 800MhZ pentium in windows 2000 with 256 MBytes memory and it was working pretty fast. So now that I have the latest centrino with 1GB memory and XP and Acrobat 6.0 professional is it unreasonable to expect things to work a little quicker!??
Well I have just converted a 55 page *text* document (note – no images) and it has taken 10 minutes on this latest hardware. Thats not impressive! As soon as I start the conversion *everthing* else stops (I have been unable to achieve this level of hammering on my machine with 3D rendering, scientific numerical equation solvers you name it). It eats the whole ram to do the conversion so *nothing* else can work while it does its business. The processor is not flatout but somehow is unable to do much else for 10 mins while we wait for Mr. adobe and his latest products.
What are abode playing at? How can you release upgrades that work that much slower than the previous version?!! I get it, now I know that adobe are conspiring with wintel to make us buy faster computers, it just cannot be this slow.
Dont waste your money.
Very very slow. Acrobat 5 is 20 times faster and more reliable!!
Couldn’t agree more. I highly recommend users not to fall for Acrobat 6.1 until they have sorted their speed issues. I too hate their new search. It is not only slow it is also not the standard OS “Find” function. Disgusting.
Hello,
I want to convert unix based file ie.txt into PDF file if there is any procedure please tell me ,how to convert my system is in networing having two server windos and unix. it is very natural that with help FTP i can get or put file according to my requiredment. unix .txt file can be open in window envorment to use the open with …… but how to convert .txt file inti pdf . tell me procedure .
thank…. hoping for the good day.
Subhash, try googling for “txt2pdf”.
My problem with Acrobat 6.0 Tryout is that now that the tryout period has expired I’d like to remove the bloat from my system and the uninstalled keeps ruinning into a network error that prevents me from removing the application.
So I tried to reinstall Acrobat and the system won’t reinstall until the TRYOUT is removed. Catch 22. Can anyone advise?
I installed the tryout 6.0 and now I can’t use the reader at all. I tried to uninstall it and it says I am missing AcroPro.msi, so the uninstall will not complete
I have to download and try
Try running “detect and repair” on Acrobat 5 after you uninstall Tryout.
I too have the same problem as some others with tryout 6.0 I dont have the acropro.msi and I can’t install, has anyone figured this out yet?
Where the heck is the “acropro.msi” file in my computer?
I want to uninstall Adobe Acrobat 6 Pro and I only have a message error.
AcroPro.msi is a missing component that I keep getting when I try to update my adobe could you please tell me HOW to get it
Have you found the answer? I have the same problem.
I also have this problem, except an installer pops up every time I open a new Explorer window (IE or “my Computer” or anything related…) asking for the file. Apparently it’s on the CD, but I don’t have the CD because my company keeps its MSI files accessible only at work (no VPN either). And it’s vacation time now, no access. Here’s to “pirating” what’s yours to begin with!
someone please email me regarding how to uninstall msn zone.com on vista, when the program is not listed under programs, how do i find programs not listed…..please help jojoelaine@msn.com…..
Trying to retrieve a PDF document created by Adobe Prof 6.0. System will not open document “because it is either not a supported file or because the file has been permanently damaged, ex. it was sent as an email attachment and wasn’t correctly decoded. However, I can forward the document to others and they can retrieve it perfectly.
Does anyone know what may be wrong with my system. I have both Prof 6 and Adober Reader 8.1.1 installed.