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Adobe Reader 9 Hits the Streets

Adobe Reader 9 Hits the Streets

by , 8:10 AM EDT, July 3rd, 2008

Adobe completed its Acrobat 9 transition with the release of Adobe Reader 9 late on Wednesday. The free PDF viewer application includes the ability to view Flash content embedded in PDF documents, and offers substantial performance improvements compared to previous versions of Adobe Reader.

Version 9 also added new collaboration support, added PDF Portfolios support, improved PDF form support, updated the user interface, and more.

Adobe Reader 9 is available as a free download at the Adobe Web site.

Observer Comments

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Close Name:Guest
Subject: Why use this instead of Preview?

Is there anything that really makes this worth downloading?

Close Name:jpfreeman Posts: 48 Joined: 12 Jan 2005
Subject:

Will it get rid of that damn acrobat updater? I despise that thing.

Close Name:Jeff Gamet -   TMO Staff Posts: 102 Joined: 15 Mar 2006
Subject: Re: Why use this instead of Preview?

Quote
Anonymous wrote:
Is there anything that really makes this worth downloading?


Not all applications display PDF the same, and Preview doesn't seem to handle transparency effects like drop shadows as well as Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader. Preview also has a tendency to show other artifacts like white lines around some regions with transparency effects.

Adobe's apps do an overall better job of accurately displaying PDF, and if you routinely work with PDF documents that require digital signatures or collaborative note features beyond what Preview offers, Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader are better choices.

That said, Preview is still a great application because it understands a wide range of file formats, handles image format conversion, and launches quickly. I use Preview when I want to see a PDF but don't care if there are rendering issues. I use Adobe Acrobat when accurate document rendering is critical.

Jeff

Close Name:Guest
Subject:

Since you can embed Flash into Acrobat 9 files, I suppose now I'll need to hit "Skip Intro" when I receive PDFs.*

Thanks Adobe!

*What did we ever do to you to deserve this kind of treatment?

Close Name:Sir Harry Flashman Posts: 792 Joined: 08 Feb 2007
Subject: As you may know

Quote
Guest wrote:
Since you can embed Flash into Acrobat 9 files, I suppose now I'll need to hit "Skip Intro" when I receive PDFs.*

Thanks Adobe!

*What did we ever do to you to deserve this kind of treatment?


As you may know I am no fan of Flash websites, but a Flash video in and of itself is not inherently evil so one in a document isn't too bad.

On the other hand I am a big fan of PDF files and use Acrobat Pro for a lot of my work. However, like Jeff I may use Preview when I just need to read a PDF file.

That being said Preview is much more powerful than most of us realize. I sometimes think that Apple is using it to keep Adobe on their toes, to keep them supporting OSX. Particularly now that PDF is a standard, what would it take for Apple to make an Acrobat Killer. To make an PhotoShop killer for that matter, play around with the image editing, Instant Alpha and Extract Shape tools to see what I mean.

Close Name:Guest
Subject:

What a bloated piece of crap!

For most uses, Preview is far superior--superb full document indexed search, fast, flexible, and Mac-like.

No thanks, Adobe.

Close Name:Guest
Subject: Adobe Reader is a bloated pig of an app....

And it's not just that Adobe is bloating Reader with "features" such as embedding flash into it to make it over 190 MB, but it also is being used to push Adobe AIR onto your system, whether you want it or not. If you want to run Adobe Reader 9, you HAVE to let it install Adobe AIR, and then if you realize you don't want it [as the only way to know that it did install it is by the message saying it includes Adobe AIR when you download it], you need to run a 40+ MB uninstaller. Yes, the uninstaller for Adobe AIR is over 40 MB!

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