OVERPRICED ACROBAT UPGRADE
by Thad McIlroy
In trying to pin down the street price of the upgrade from Acrobat 7 Professional to Acrobat 8 Professional, a Google search, not surprisingly, led to Amazon.com, where the price was listed as US$142.99, a 10 percent savings from Adobe's list price of US$159. On Amazon.ca, the price is $169.99 in Canadian funds, with no discount available.
To complicate matters, there are in fact seven different versions of Adobe Acrobat: Standard, Professional, 3D, Acrobat Elements, Acrobat Connect and Acrobat Connect Professional and the still-free Acrobat Reader. There are also a couple of Adobe server products that can come into play in large installations, and, by the way, Creative Suite 2 is now called Creative Suite 2.3 when Acrobat 8 is included, and with (the old Macromedia) Dreamweaver substituting for the never-very-popular Adobe GoLive.
Acrobat Professional is the standard for the graphic arts. The full Professional version, for the 17 interested Canadians (and 170 Americans) who have yet to purchase Acrobat, goes for CDN$469.99 (no discount available), or for US$449.00 (reduced by 11 percent to $399.99 on Amazon.com). According to today's Bank of Canada nominal exchange rate, the U.S. product would cost CDN$450.87, plus shipping (but minus sales tax), while the Canadian product, though eligible for free shipping, would set you back CDN$535.79 with GST & PST included. Sadly, when I tried to order the U.S. version at $399, to see what the shipping might be, Amazon.com refused my order, telling me that I would have to order from Amazon.ca instead. A racket if there ever was one.
I am reinforced in my notion that it is the upgrade that matters more than the full version, as I find on Amazon.com that purchasers of the full version cannot lay claim to the diverse interests of the upgraders. According to the Amazon.com site, customers who bought the upgrade also bought: The Da Vinci Code DVD and 24 Season 5 DVD along with a couple of other software products.
So it would seem that a certain predilection for mysticism might predispose you towards upgrading your copy of Adobe Acrobat Professional, or perhaps a sense of adventure, with some lurking suspicion of international conspiracies. I imagine that few will purchase it based on inherent value.
My fixation on pricing is justified, I think, because this is a software review, and the only question is whether you are going to receive $170 worth of value to upgrade your copy of Acrobat Professional, or $535 worth of value to buy it new. Owning a version of Acrobat Professional is essential for everyone in the graphic arts: a brand new copy of V7 is available on eBay for CDN$250 to $300 -- a real value! To provide a clear voice in all of this, Adobe created 10 Lettermanesque reasons why you need to buy Acrobat 8 Professional:
1. Enable advanced features in Adobe Reader
Anyone using free Adobe Reader software (version 7.0 or 8) can participate in document reviews, fill and save electronic forms offline and digitally sign documents.
2. Combine and optimize documents
Combine documents, drawings, and rich media content into a single, polished Adobe PDF document. Optimize file size.
3. Accelerate document reviews
Send documents for review and track which reviewers have contributed feedback. Compile comments into a single PDF document with one-button ease.
4. Save in Microsoft Word
Save Adobe PDF files as Microsoft Word documents, retaining the layout, fonts, formatting, and tables, to facilitate reuse of content.
5. Create advanced forms
Design dynamic, interactive forms to collect and aggregate data through e-mail or on the Web with included Adobe LiveCycle Designer software. (Windows only)
6. Easily create Adobe PDF documents
Create Adobe PDF documents with one-button ease from Microsoft Office applications. Windows users can also create Adobe PDF documents from Outlook, Internet Explorer, Project, Visio, Access, Publisher, AutoCAD, and Lotus Notes files.
7. Apply passwords and assign permissions
Restrict access to Adobe PDF documents using 128-bit encryption.
8. Permanently remove sensitive information
Permanently remove metadata, hidden layers, and other concealed information, and use redaction tools to permanently delete sensitive content.
9. Archive papers and e-mails for easy search and retrieval
Scan paper documents with OCR technology to create compact, searchable Adobe PDF documents. Archive Microsoft Outlook e-mail to Adobe PDF.
10. Generate professional, print-ready files
Automate the preflight process and correct issues that might compromise print quality without creating a new Adobe PDF document.
Not all of these features are available in all versions (as a chart reveals on the company's website). However, every one of these features is already available in Acrobat 7, in most cases from Adobe itself, in two cases from third-parties. What the upgrade affords is some additional robustness in most of the stated features, rather than new features per se.
Adobe has very smart folks working for it, particularly in the Acrobat group, so someone knows the real reason for this upgrade. I do not. Please write a letter to PrintAction and explain. We're listening.
The mystery continues
This past summer, in early June to be more exact, we were treated to a tempest in a teapot, or perhaps to a strategic Trojan Horse tactic.
The Wall Street Journal and many others described an apparent dispute between Microsoft and Adobe, stating that Microsoft had been planning to support Adobe's PDF format in Microsoft Office, but Adobe is now forcing Microsoft to withdraw it.
This being ostensibly the case, why is the fourth reason to upgrade described by Adobe as the ability to "Save Adobe PDF files as Microsoft Word documents, retaining the layout, fonts, formatting, and tables, to facilitate reuse of content" while the sixth is to be able to "Create Adobe PDF documents with one-button ease from Microsoft Office applications."
Something here is not adding up either (not to mention the fact that there are scores of third parties who can license PDF creation to Microsoft). Oh well, ours is not to reason why, ours is to upgrade and hold our wagging tongues.
The word on the street is that Creative Suite itself will be upgraded to V3 by early next year. Perhaps then the flaccid so-called new features of Acrobat 8 will then start to make more sense.
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