Acrobat X Pro

[Stephen Marsh]

Adobe have finally announced the release of Acrobat X Pro.

Acrobat is "divorced" from the creative suite in terms of development timelines (both a good and bad thing), which means that when a new creative suit is launched, it often has the old Acrobat. I personally think that many Print based creative suite users have been holding off updating, until CS5 includes the new Acrobat (as they have Acrobat 9 Pro with CS3 or CS4). Acrobat has become, is becoming very important. As more customers supply PDF files instead of native application files, prepress and printers tend to rely on Acrobat (and third party plugs) more than ever.

I know things are still early, however, there does not appear to be much hype or even information on the Adobe site about what the prepress type features are, or what other new features make this a compelling update over version 9.

Dov, or anybody else care to comment?


http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatpro.html


Stephen Marsh

[Lukas Engqvist]

The main things are user features, and will not much affect the way you process the PDF files. Wizards are the big thing, portfolios and scanning etc. Batching PDF files is easier too.

[leonardr]

I know things are still early, however, there does not appear to be much hype or even information on the Adobe site about what the prepress type features are, or what other new features make this a compelling update over version 9.

The only specific "pre-press" features in Acrobat X are in the area of printing (improved color & ink controls) and various bug fixes in Preflight, the Flattener, etc.

As noted, the new UI and Actions will be helpful to you as well.

And Portfolios might be interesting for distributing your work...

[FileJockey]

What about Pitstop compatibility in the forthcoming Acrobat X Pro? I can't find any real information from Enfocus about which (if any) versions of Pitstop Pro will work with the new Acrobat.

[mattbeals]

There isn't any official information regarding PitStop Pro 10 and Acrobat Pro X. Since Acrobt Pro X isn't yet released Enfocus can't "certify" PitStop Pro 10 for Acrobat X Pro. Once Acrobat X is released I'm sure Enfocus will have something to say.

[prepressguru]

It bothers me they held off releasing the new version of Acrobat after the launch of CS5. But I guess if you have not updated to CS5 you should be getting the new Acrobat?

p

[leonardr]

It bothers me they held off releasing the new version of Acrobat after the launch of CS5. But I guess if you have not updated to CS5 you should be getting the new Acrobat?

Acrobat and Creative Suite have ALWAYS been "off cycle" from each other - this time the CS team was ready before we were and they chose not to wait.

[sfair@ku.edu]

I had a long conversation with our campus Adobe rep last week. I like to chat about the pain of deploying Adobe software and why we don't jump at the chance to upgrade every time a "feature" is released. I mentioned my background using Acrobat for prepress work and he was shocked and amazed that Acrobat could be used for proofing, printing, and advanced production work. I'd say the Acrobat team has forgotten about printing and prepress and they obviously don't advertise internally the uses of Acrobat for commercial printing applications.

[thomaus]

Adobe have finally announced the release of Acrobat X Pro.

I personally think that many Print based creative suite users have been holding off updating, until CS5 includes the new Acrobat (as they have Acrobat 9 Pro with CS3 or CS4).
Stephen Marsh

You'll have to keep waiting.

According to our Adobe Sales Rep, Acrobat X will be bundled with CS6. So, if you want it before that, it's an additional upgrade even if you buy CS5 today.

The Enfocus site still has no info on Acrobat X compatibility. So, no guarantee that upgrading to Pitstop 10 would actually end up working with Acrobat X without a further upgrade for that too.

[mattbeals]

It takes time to verify compatibility... Acrobat X was just released. If you need a tool for editing/fixing PDF's that doesn't rely on Acrobat compatibility then look at callas pdfToolbox which comes as a plug-in or as a standalone PDF editor/viewer. There's also Enfocus PitStop Extreme which doesn't do everything PitStop 10 does but in some areas does more.