Adobe® Acrobat® XI Pro is more than just the leading PDF converter. It's packed with smart tools that give you even more power to communicate. Easily, seamlessly, brilliantly.
Every change in Acrobat XI seems to be designed to move PDF files through your hands faster, increasing their interoperability with other applications, and making them more easily accessible from any device.
One of PDF's mixed blessings as a format has always been its uneditability. While immutability means that the file always looks the same regardless of viewing platform or system configuration, it's always been frustrating that you couldn't make basic changes to a document without returning to the originating application.
But now you can edit and add text, perform search and replace, and individually replace images and graphics extremely easily. You're still relatively limited by the page layout -- text will reflow, but if you extend pass the existing area it will overlap with other page objects and it will substitute fonts rather than rendering a close-looking facsimile (because, well, DRM). But as someone who routinely has to pull PDF files back into Illustrator for small tweaks based on other people's feedback, I'm chair dancing. The Typewriter tool has been replaced by a full-fledged text engine, and it's faster. If you regularly grind your teeth waiting for the Typewriter tool to load, it's probably worth the upgrade cost. In fact, the program feels a lot faster than Acrobat X overall.
FEATURES
- Convert files to PDF - Get an integrated Acrobat toolbar for popular Microsoft and browser apps to quickly turn documents and web pages into high-quality PDF files, or create PDF documents from any desktop app that prints.
- Export PDF files - Convert PDF to Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint and preserve formatting.
- Create electronic forms - Build PDF or web forms in minutes with the new, included Adobe FormsCentral desktop app.
- Edit PDF files - Easily correct, update, or adjust text and images with a new point-and-click interface - make changes right in your PDF file.
- Prepare PDF files consistently - Streamline routine, multistep tasks with guided or automated Actions.
There's also better interoperability with other office applications, most notably PowerPoint. You can export a PDF-formatted presentation to PowerPoint and it makes an attempt to convert text and objects to their PowerPoint counterparts. It will even create slide templates based on your background formatting. With the beta I tested the results were mixed, but usable overall.
Adobe has updated the interface for combining files with thumbnails and the ability to selectively include individual pages from documents.
Interface to EchoSign
Adobe bills this Acrobat update as "Acrobat XI with new Cloud Services," which for the most part means increased integration with last year's acquisition of EchoSign and year-old FormsCentral, plus the ability to access and check in and out documents from SharePoint/Office365 and Acrobat.com resources. It uses EchoSign for managing signature flows and providing audit trails.
FormsCentral desktop comes with the Pro version and in addition to form creation and data gathering now allows you to view response data and generate a summary report, as well as export data to Excel. It's also a lot easier to get started using an existing PDF form, which it can now import, and it's pretty easy to create the linkages between the form and the online data capture.
For organizations that use thin-client platforms for remote operation, such as Citrix, it now supports running the full version of the program off the server, and if you're running it that way on a mobile device it will automatically translate the interface to support touch gestures and space out the icons for fat-finger relief.
Redesigned protection options
Security options have been surfaced, with more streamlined operation. For instance, now it's faster to simply password-protect a file against editing (Restrict Editing) and the ease of redacting information should thrill those responsible for information purges. With one click you can strip out tons of metadata and linked content as well as flatten and purge the file of cruft.
