by David
Nagel
Executive Producer
dnagel@digitalmedianet.com
Adobe today announced Acrobat Reader 5.0, a forthcoming upgrade
to its PDF creation software. According to Adobe, "Customers can
be certain that Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files they
create in Acrobat 5.0 and share online can be viewed and printed
using the ubiquitous Acrobat Reader across various hardware and
operating systems." But the company says Acrobat 5.0 functionality
goes well beyond this and that the new version can be used collaboratively
and that a whole host of new features have been added, such as
new capabilities for creating, signing and sending secure documents;
new features for accessibility to the disabled; and other workflow
and distribution enhancements.
Acrobat 5.0 offers Web integration based on WebDistributed Authoring
and Versioning (WebDAV) and Open DataBase Connectivity (ODBC),
which allows teams to share comments on Adobe PDF files from within
a browser. Support for XML makes it possible for users to integrate
data, such as metadata and forms data, in Adobe PDF files. And
stronger integration with enterprise deployment tools enables
IT professionals to auto install and maintain Acrobat 5.0 over
a network.
Acrobat 5.0 is expected to ship in the second quarter for $249.
It will be available for Mac OS 8.6 and higher and Windows 95
OSR 2.0 or higher. Registered users of earlier Acrobat software
versions can upgrade to Acrobat 5.0 for $99. French, German and
Japanese versions of Acrobat 5.0 are expected to be available
shortly after the initial release. For more information, visit
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat.
