The most recent articles from PC Magazine

Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Professional

Paul Monckton — 2003-11-14T15:26:58.000Z

Paul Monckton, PC Magazine, Friday 14 November 2003 at 15:26:58

A new range of features to attract new users.

As a subscriber to PC Magazine, you'll need no introduction to Adobe's PDF format, which is by now ubiquitous throughout the Web and becoming more and more common in general business use. Perhaps you're already using the new Adobe Reader 6.0 to read this magazine - if so, it will come as no surprise to discover that the new reader is partnered by a new version of Acrobat.

In this version, Adobe has delivered many new features and improved ease of use, making the PDF format attractive to new classes of users, especially those in corporate environments, while delivering greater power and control to high-end pre-press users such as professional magazine production departments. With new support for AutoCAD and Visio, users with an architectural or engineering bent can create, share and collaborate on portable documents that preserve the logical layering of their original application files.

If this sounds like a horrendous amount of software bloat, you'll be pleased to learn that Acrobat has now been split into Standard and Professional versions. Although they share the same revamped user interface, the former is aimed more towards general business use and omits the advanced editing and pre-press functionality of the Professional version. Professional users also get built-in OCR, rules, guides and measurement tools plus interactive form creation.

If you're familiar with Acrobat 5.0, the first thing you'll notice on opening Acrobat 6.0 is the new-look user interface. To help you find the functionality you want, menus are now arranged by task, such as Create PDF and Review & Comment. Under each heading, you'll find drop-down command menus appropriate for each task. There's also a handy, context-sensitive How To ...? pane which provides helpful hints while you're working. If you're an advanced user, you'll find all your power-user commands in the new Advanced Editing toolbar and you can disable the How To ...? pane to regain some useful screen space.

New, one-button PDF file-creation features make it much easier to create PDF documents from within Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office applications and from the Windows Desktop. Inside applications such as Microsoft Word and Excel, a new Acrobat toolbar lets you convert to PDF, convert to PDF and email, or convert to PDF and send for review-integrating nicely with Acrobat's enhanced collaboration tools. You can easily combine assorted Office documents into a single PDF by right-clicking them on the Desktop and selecting Combine in Adobe Acrobat. Another great feature is the ability to create PDFs of Web pages directly from within Internet Explorer. From within Acrobat itself, you can capture an entire Web site into a single PDF, complete with embedded Flash and multimedia content - these features are now supported in the new PDF 1.5 file format.

The new PDF Optimizer integrates much of the functionality of Distiller into the main Acrobat application. It adds supports for JPEG2000 for greater image compression and PDF/X-1a for pre-press work. Of course, you can also use settings here to maintain compatibility with previous versions of Acrobat. New security options allow for greater control over who can view and edit your documents as well as what they can do with them. For example, you can now allow only low-resolution prints to be made by those without the proper credentials. There's also support for digital public signatures.

Acrobat 6.0 widens the appeal of the PDF format by appealing to new classes of users and providing enhanced functionality for its existing user-base, most of whom will find it well worth the £119 (ex. VAT) for the Professional upgrade pack. The Standard upgrade is cheaper at £75 (ex. VAT). If you haven't considered using PDF as part of your business workflow until now, Acrobat 6.0 could be the product that changes your mind.

Contact: Adobe (0870) 606 0325

http://eurostore.adobe.com

System requirements:

Windows NT/2000/XP/Tablet PC Edition, Macintosh OS X (Note-Standard version also supports Windows 98)
Memory 64MB
Hard disk 245MB Display 1,024x768
CD-ROM drive

Adobe FrameMaker 7.0

Ed Brown — 2002-07-25T13:53:14.000Z

Ed Brown, PC Magazine, Thursday 25 July 2002 at 13:53:14

Version 7.0 provides SGML capabilities for XML production, but is generally disappointing.

FrameMaker has long been the market leader in the technical documentation field with its excellent cross-referencing, multi-volume and structured template approach to publishing.

With the latest release of FrameMaker 7.0, Adobe has positioned it at users who need to produce long documents that are distinguished by being template-driven, where a variety of output formats, such as print, PDF, HTML, SGML, XML and various eBook formats, are important.

Typical documents created with FrameMaker include manuals, technical briefs, e-books and personalised content.

In previous releases of the software, there were two options: FrameMaker and FrameMaker +SGML. FrameMaker 7.0 does away with this distinction, as the two are now bundled together.

This means that for many existing users there will be new features available through the integration of the SGML component, which now gives access to structured publishing tools, essentially document-type descriptions (DTD) for working with SGML (including XML) documents.

Installation is straightforward, but the bundled WebWorks Standard Edition 7.0 isn't installed by default. This is surprising, as many of the output improvements rely on the bundled package and you're limited in your output options until WebWorks is installed.

When you first start FrameMaker 7.0, you're asked if you want to work in Structured FrameMaker mode, an option that dictates the number of editing options available.

It's important to realise that both modes use the same template-driven, tagging approach and that the main difference is in the validation of a 'structure' against a defined DTD, such as one of the provided DTD structures like xBook.

For those new to SGML there is new jargon to learn, but Adobe assists in this by providing various applications with validated DTDs, together with a guide to XML for those wanting to learn more.

The bundling of the SGML features will provide many users with new options, but Adobe has also improved the handling of XML, so FrameMaker is capable of round-trip XML, which can be imported, edited and exported for reuse.

It's now also possible to take an existing unstructured FrameMaker document, create a structure, apply it to the document and replace the structure with another that's been defined.

The process is well handled and FrameMaker provides good feedback on problems. The resulting structure can also be manipulated in the Structure view.

In most other applications, mappings would be set up in a dialog box that hides the complexities, but FrameMaker retains the arcane text file approach of its origins.

While this is remarkably flexible, setting up a simple change of master pages to show a different one on every page with a 'ch' heading tag is fraught with problems, and a simple punctuation error can cause FrameMaker to crash.

We would have liked to see major improvements in the interface, but little work has been done here, making FrameMaker look dated.

An area of better improvement is the output. Here again, Adobe has bundled WebWorks Standard Edition as a means to generate output for a variety of devices.

In addition to the native print and PDF production, WebWorks also allows the production of e-book (Palm Reader PDB format and Microsoft's Reader LIT format) files and HTML for web servers. Each of these formats can be controlled by templates which define the appearance of the generated output.

Standard templates are provided, which can be modified within the WebWorks editor. Graphics in a FrameMaker file can be converted to standard web image and graphics formats, such as animated GIFs, and Adobe's SVG graphics format can be used without alteration for web use.

Support is also included for visually impaired readers with such things as large text.

By bringing SGML capabilities to FrameMaker, Adobe has widened its user base. The bundled WebWorks software will also attract new users who want to re-purpose their final output for additional formats.

Unfortunately, though, little has been done to make FrameMaker 7.0 approachable to new users, and its arcane interface and steep learning curve need to be balanced against the benefits.

Price: £579.99 (ex. VAT)

Minimum requirements: Windows 98/ME/NT 4.0/2000/XP; Pentium II 233MHz; 64MB Ram; 100MB hard drive space.

Contact: Adobe 01494 797 828

www.adobe.co.uk

Adobe InDesign 2.0

Cliff Joseph — 2002-04-11T11:23:16.000Z

Cliff Joseph, PC Magazine, Thursday 11 April 2002 at 11:23:16

If your work regularly involves other graphics and design tools, you might find InDesign is the program that ties them all together.

When Adobe launched InDesign, many described it as a 'Quark-killer', in the belief that Adobe was ready to go head-to-head with DTP giant Quark XPress. However, one of the most notable features of InDesign was that it didn't attempt to compete with Quark XPress on its own terms. Instead of trying to match its competitor's versatile layout and typographic tools, InDesign concentrated on productivity and workflow issues.

Adobe has clearly decided to stick with that strategy for InDesign 2.0.

The upgrade includes a few new creative tools, such as the transparency controls, but most of these are aimed at streamlining the design process and achieving results more quickly.

On the creative side, InDesign's new transparency options allow you to add a drop shadow to text and graphics objects. The degree of transparency, positioning of the drop shadow and the way transparent colours blend with other elements can all be specified within the Drop Shadow dialog. Transparency can also be used to apply Feathering, which softens the edges of an object by applying a gradual transparency to the pixels on its outline.

Graphics can be imported from other Adobe products, such as Acrobat, Illustrator or Photoshop, with their own transparency settings preserved, and you can also preserve transparency settings when exporting documents as PDFs.

Combining transparent elements in a layout can cause problems during printing. With that in mind, InDesign 2.0 includes a number of new printing options to make it easier to get accurate printouts.

A Flatteners feature lets you control how layered or transparent elements are merged to provide a simple flat image for printing. There are many predefined flattening options, but you can also create custom settings of your own for particular jobs.

Adobe has bolstered InDesign's printing options in other ways as well. For example, there's a new Preview mode that provides a print preview in the main document workspace, so you no longer have to open the Print dialog and use the print driver for this.

This mode hides non-printing elements, such as grids and column guides, but you also have the ability to print grids and guides on your proofs by selecting these options in the modified Print dialog box. You can now also proof spot colour effects with the Overprint Preview option.

Other useful timesaving features include better support for long documents.

You can import multiple documents and combine them into a single 'book list', and there are also improved options for creating indexes and tables of contents for these.

New table tools are also welcome, although they're still fairly basic. Tables can be created inside a text frame by using the Insert Table command.

You can specify the number of rows and columns in the table, as well as formatting attributes such as the fill colour of individual cells. Existing text can be converted into a table and you also have the ability to import Tab delimited data from spreadsheets, including Excel.

These options let you create simple tables quickly, although larger or more complex ones will probably still require third-party add-on programs, such as Em Software's InData.

Adobe has included internet options for exporting documents as HTML, PDF or XML files. InDesign also supports the WebDAV protocol (web distributed authoring and versioning), so groups of users can collaborate on the same documents over the internet or an intranet.

Adobe's strategy for InDesign isn't to outgun Quark XPress with a long list of features, but to position it as the central point of a streamlined design process. This strategy means InDesign concentrates on productivity, rather than eye-catching trickery.

Designers working with Quark XPress every day probably won't be lured away by InDesign 2.0. But if your work regularly involves other graphics and design tools, you might find InDesign is the program that ties them all together.

Contact

Adobe, 1 Roundwood Avenue, Stockley Park, Uxbridge, Middlesex UB11 1AY Tel 020 8606 4000 Fax 020 8606 4004 www.adobe.co.uk/products/indesign/