Adobe releases Acrobat 8 and announces its integration into Adobe Creative Suite 2.3.

Adobe announces Acrobat 8 Professional

Acrobat 8 Professional and Acrobat 8 Standard will be released in November, Adobe has announced.

Graphics software publisher Adobe has announced that it also plans to bundle Acrobat 8 Professional into the next update of Creative Suite, version 2.3.

A major addition is the integration with the new Acrobat Connect product line, which brings real-time, interactive web conferencing and collaboration into the design and publishing workflow.

Utilising Flash and a web browser, Acrobat Connect will allow designers, editors and their clients to collaborate more closely on projects, with shared reviews and commenting. For example whilst sharing a review of a document, designers can see comments made by other users, such as editors, pre-press professionals, or clients and keep a closer track of the whole production process.

Other new features promised in Acrobat 8, of interest to graphics professionals, include a streamlined interface, which Adobe claim make the product easier for first time users; and the ability to export the content of a PDF file into numerous formats. The latter addition is a long sought after feature by designers who need to redesign PDF documents for different purposes and media.

The full Adobe Acrobat family comprises of Acrobat 8 Professional, Acrobat 8 Standard, Acrobat 8 Elements, Acrobat 3D Version 8, Acrobat Connect and Acrobat Connect Professional. The good news for Mac designers is that the Mac OS X version of Acrobat 8 Professional comes in Universal Binary format. This means that it will install and run at full speed on both PowerPC and Intel processor based Macintosh computers, such as the recently released Mac Pros.

According to Adobe, Acrobat 8 Professional will cost around US$449 and upgrade prices from previous versions will be US$159.

18 September 2006

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