Adobe says that Acrobat 8 has “71 pages of new features”, however, its pre-launch information emphasises a revised user interface, start-up screen wizards for beginners, new multiple file mergers and an improved collaborative viewing and approvals process.

The really interesting bits for printers and designers are barely mentioned, but they’re important: an expanded pre-flight module can now automatically fix some errors as they are found. JDF is used to transfer job options, pre-flight checks and fix settings to other users. There are also more PDF/X print-friendly export options.

As before, Acrobat 8 will be available in Standard and Professional editions, for Windows or Mac OS X (now in Universal Binary for new Intel Macs and old PowerPCs). As ever, there are actually two programmes supplied: Distiller, which mainly creates PDFs through the print menu; and Acrobat itself, which can edit or merge existing PDFs to add security, bookmarks, interactivity, scripts, video and other features. It can also convert existing image files, such as TIFFs or JPEGs, by writing a PDF “wrapper” around them.

Creative elements
Initially, Acrobat 8 Professional will only be released as part of an updated Adobe Creative Suite 2.3 Premium, alongside InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, GoLive and, a new addition, the former Macromedia DreamWeaver web authoring programme. This will cost £900 new, or £130 as an upgrade – quite a lot considering that Adobe will expect users to cough up again for Creative Suite 3 in about six months. You’ll be able to buy standalone Acrobat 8 as Standard, Professional, and the specialist 3D version, but Adobe hasn’t revealed dates or prices. Acrobat 8 Elements, a Windows-only version for basic PDF writing, is due next year.

The extended pre-flighting in Acrobat 8 Professional is probably the most significant part of the upgrade for printers, publishers, designers and their customers. As before, the underlying technology is supplied by Callas Software and is similar to its own pdfCorrect, although Adobe has improved Acrobat’s pre-flight user interface. It supplies preset profiles to check and report whether the PDF is suitable for many common job types, or you can set up your own. Pre-flighting can now look into the “deep structure” of PDFs for things such as font character sets.

Most importantly, you can now choose “fixups” that can correct some problems automatically. These include the usual items such as RGB-CMYK, hairlines, too-high resolution, transparency flattening, removal of hidden content or items outside the trim/bleed box. The pre-flighter is also used to validate PDF/X files as they are created, either through the Distiller/print route or by converting existing PDFs to PDF/X within Acrobat itself. Acrobat 8 Professional can export PDF/X-1a:2001, PDF/X-3:2002 and the new PDF/X-4, an Adobe proposal that’s likely to be adopted as an official standard next year. X-4 can preserve transparency, which may be useful when Adobe’s next-generation PDF Print Engine starts appearing in pre-press workflow products.

Ghent Workgroup subsets of PDF/X can be created for specific industry sectors, such as packaging or newspapers. The PDF/A archival format can also be written.

Interoperability
Potentially, one of the most important features of Acrobat 8 is an implementation of JDF that actually works here-and-now and doesn’t depend on complex interoperability trials with other systems. Acrobat can package up all the job options, pre-flight profiles, correction profiles and order information and save them in a single JDF file that can be supplied to in-house designers or external customers.

The receiver double-clicks the JDF file, which launches Acrobat 8 Pro and gives the option to “submit” one or more PDF files. These are automatically verified against the pre-flight profile, fixed if necessary, and written into the revised JDF package together with a pre-flight report.

What’s more, importing an InDesign native file into the JDF will initially distil it to a PDF, according to the job options embedded in the JDF, then run the pre-flighter and corrections as before.

The JDF ticket can also include standard “creative intent” information such as order number, customer contact, run length, stock type, colour details, special instructions and so on, all of which can be set up in advance, saved as a named set and recalled later.

The upshot is that a JDF sent to a customer can come back to the printer as a complete packet, containing verified content files, pre-flight reports and a creative intent job ticket that can be fed into either a JDF-enabled MIS and/or a pre-press workflow, which can in principle process the content automatically.

Acrobat 7’s JDF support could already do all of this, except for the new correction profiles. However, Adobe hardly mentioned this to users. Hopefully, Acrobat 8 will include proper documentation for what could be a very useful feature in the production cycle.

Acrobat has been able to merge several PDFs into one for some time. An interesting new feature is the option to create PDF “packages” of several files that remain separate when you view them. They don’t all have to be PDFs either – they can be a mix of PDFs, Word/Excel files (Windows versions only), 3D CAD and so on. This could be particularly useful for packaging or multi-part commercial work.

Dodgy dossiers
On the security side, Acrobat 8 introduces “redaction”, a term for blacking out parts of a document that you don’t want unauthorised viewers to see. You highlight the areas to black out and Acrobat deletes the underlying content so it can’t be restored later. Great for spooks, dodgy dossiers and customers working on a top-secret launch.

Inevitably, there’s a new version of the file format, PDF 1.7, though Acrobat 8 can still write any version of PDF from 1.2 upward. The useful optimiser feature first seen in Acrobat 7 allows you to convert between file versions, so a tricky PDF 1.7 or 1.5 might be changed to 1.3 for older RIPs.

A major reason for Acrobat’s success over the years has been its free reader programme, which can be downloaded from the Adobe website or distributed on CD-ROMs and DVDs. This means anyone can view and print PDFs on any computer without needing the original layout programme or buying Acrobat. Adobe Reader 7 can even view 3D files written by Acrobat 3D. Introduced earlier this year, Esko already uses this to create interactive 3D packaging proofs that can be sent to customers and Fuji previewed a 3D commercial proof product at Ipex.

A new Adobe Reader 8 will be able to read PDF 1.7 and all other formats. Reader 7 introduced the ability to annotate and re-save PDFs, provided this feature is “enabled” by the user of the full Acrobat package who writes the original PDF file. With Reader 8, this is extended to filling in and re-saving live PDF forms, which should really boost the take-up of PDFs for corporate and public sector/government use.

Acrobat 8’s newly expanded collaborative working lets multiple networked users view and annotate the same PDF placed in a shared network folder.

Adobe itself seems to be most excited by its new web conferencing product, Acrobat Connect, which runs online meetings as “rooms” on an Adobe-hosted server. Acrobat 8 and Adobe Reader can link to meetings with a single button click. Based on an existing Macromedia product called Breeze (now renamed Connect Professional), it operates rather like a web conference, but with shared access to PDFs, instant messaging and video conferencing. The price hasn’t been announced, but it may be subscription-based.

Anyone in professional print probably has Acrobat 8 already or will have to upgrade to 8 to handle future customer files. Waiting for the standalone upgrades will probably be cheaper, unless you actually need the very limited new features of Creative Suite 2.3.
Our alternatives column is a bit light because nothing else has the all-round abilities of Acrobat, though a few low-cost programmes can offer basic PDF page re-ordering, file merging, interactivity and so on – an example is CutePDF Professional at about £30 (www.cutepdf.com). Third-party utilities and plug-ins such as Callas pdfToolbox or Enfocus PitStop Professional add functions, but require you to have Acrobat and Distiller, so they’re additions, not alternatives.

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SPECIFICATIONS
Platform
• Mac OS X 10.4,
• Windows 2000/XP
Price
• £900 (as part of Creative Suite Premium 2.3)/separate prices TBA
Contact
• Adobe Systems 020 8606 4001 www.adobe.com

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THE ALTERNATIVE
Global Graphics PDF Creator 4.0
PDF Creator is a low-cost alternative to Adobe’s own Distiller and runs through the print menu or a drag-and-drop desktop icon. Unlike Distiller, it’s sold separately. However, it’s not equivalent to the main Acrobat itself – there’s no pre-flighter, no editing capability and no JDF. The Windows version inserts macros into MS Office files, which allows exported PDFs to retain document structure and hyperlinks.
PDF Creator 4 exports formats up to PDF 1.5, with 128-bit secure encryption. It can export PDF/X-1a 2001 and PDF/X-3 2002, plus Ghent Workgroup versions. For pre-press users, a range of plug-ins is supplied to support functions such as Quark XPress blends, Corel trims and greyscale images.
A server version is also available for larger users.
Platform
• Mac OS X
• Windows
PDF versions
• 1.3
• 1.4
• 1.5
• PDF/X
Price
• £47
Contact
• Global Graphics 01223 873800 www.jawspdf.com