Adobe Acrobat X use in business

[WOBY2]

Hi

Are there many here using Adobe Acrobat or alternative PDF software as the sole document creation software for their business?

 

[pigoo3]

Thread moved to better area.

- Nick

 

[MBP17•David]

Not a "sole document creation software" as such, but I use PDF extensively, and Acrobat Pro to edit .pdf files.

As far as creating them, that depends on originating app - many documents start as open format text or spreadsheet, and converted into PDF by OpenOffice own engine; others, e.g. brochures, leaflets, etc start as InDesign or CorelDRAW files and saved as PDFs, in the latter case using Corel's built-in PDF creator with excellent pre-press options ...

 

[WOBY2]

Hi David,

Thanks for the reply, I'm using Word to create most of my documents for clients, these are simply text/picture rich reports I then convert them to PDF to send on to clients. However, on using Adobe a bit more this weekend I'm starting to think it may well be just as well to create the reports within Acrobat to begin with, it does give more flexibility with some of the fiddly bits of my reports like inserting and resizing of site photographs etc. Have you found Acrobat to have many limitations? The documents I'm creating are pretty simple and straight forward stuff-text, pictures and some links.

Thanks

 

[MBP17•David]

There are a couple of things that need clarifying here: when you say "Adobe" or "Acrobat" do you mean Adobe Acrobat Pro or Adobe Reader (formerly Adobe Acrobat Reader)? I have no experience with the latter, but have used Pro for many years, first as a stand-alone and later when it became part of Creative Suite.

I do not use Acrobat Pro to create publications, although I suppose it is possible, to certain extent. To overcome limitations of a word processing app, such as Word or Writer, you'd ideally need a page layout app, like InDesign, CorelDRAW, PageMaker, etc, etc. However, as you said, if your requirements are not terribly demanding, it is possible to use either a text editor, or a pdf editor. If your Mac is recent enough to benefit from free iWorks, then I suggest you give Pages a very close look - it is much more capable, as far page layout work is concerned, than any other text editor I've used.

As to logistics and workflow, I still prefer to keep (and create) text in a text app, then insert into text frames in a page layout app, add illustrations, save as editable layout file, and finally create pdf of whatever type is required - online distribution pdf is significantly different from a pre-press one I upload to my printers...