I’m seeing a lot of organisations adopt Microsoft’s SharePoint server lately and one common discussion point is around PDF workflows and how to support functions such as Check In / Check out etc. For those users out there, you’ll be please to know that Adobe has quite a few new ways for you to extend your SharePoint workflows into the world of PDF, including native support within Adobe Acrobat X and LiveCycle ES2.5

Check-in / Check-out support

Acrobat X allows users to support Checkin & out workflows. Acrobat will automatically prompt a user when they open a PDF file from within SharePoint and ask if they just want to open the file, or check it out and open. Acrobat then remembers the links to Sharepoint and will prompt the user to check the file back in when they close it. A new menu item will appear whenever a document is opened from Sharepoint allowing the user to access additional functions.

Good news for Adobe Reader users too.. this functionality is included in the free Adobe Reader X!

Review & Commenting on PDF documents.

Sharepoint can be used as a repository for all the correspondence during an Acrobat Shared Review. As long as all the users have permission and can access the Sharepoint server, the integration is quite easy. With a PDF file open in Acrobat 9 or Acrobat X, simply start the Shared Review wizard, select Sharepoint, select your workspace, then invite other users. Acrobat will upload the file to SharePoint and send out a download link to each invited user. From there on any user with Acrobat or Reader (if the initiator used Acrobat Pro) simply adds comments to the PDF and clicks “Publish My Comments” on the top right of the document.

All the comments  go back into Sharepoint automatically (just the small comment data, not the whole PDF) and all the other reviewers immediately get the new comments!

Acrobat Form Distribution

In much the same way as the Shared Review feature in Acrobat can use SharePoint, so too can PDF Forms. Simply run through the Distribute wizard, select SharePoint and upload and track your PDF Form submissions!

Server-side integration

LiveCycle ES2.5 now includes a connector for SharePoint 2007 & SharePoint 2010. By enabling this connector and configuring it to work with your LiveCycle installation, users can perform server-side conversions of native documents into PDF, invoke LiveCycle processes & secure information with LiveCycle’s Rights Management component.

Read more about the SharePoint Connector for Adobe LiveCycle ES

Demo

I recently recorded a 1 hour demonstration of most of what I’ve talked about above. Take a look and see how Sharepoint & Acrobat X (and a just a quick look at LiveCycle ES) work together: http://pacific.adobe.acrobat.com/p50957540/

Adobe today announced the next generation of Acrobat. What does that mean? Acrobat X (pronounced Ten) is a vast improvement over previous versions, that includes a new intuitive user interface, collaboration features and other ways to make you more productive.

As Adobe continues work on Acrobat Dynamic PDF, Acrobat X users can create new PDF Portfolios, completely stylized and branded to allow multiple files to be delivered as a package. You can even include remote content such as websites & online video that will play when the PDF Portfolio is opened. The result is a very engaging PDF that is still lightweight and extremely portable.

Acrobat X users can leverage Dynamic PDFs to collect feedback from their colleagues by sending PDF documents that can automatically send the marked up comments back to the document author. These “workflow aware” PDFs know where they came from and with a click of a button within Acrobat X or Reader X the comments are sent in real time, reducing emails and allowing multiple users to collaborate in context with ease.

Microsoft SharePoint users can take advantage of the new integration features within Acrobat X. Checkin/checkout workflows, version & commenting are all now supported within Acrobat X as well as support for Sharepoint in Review & Comment workflows.

Form developers will be able to take advantage of the built in form improvements in addition to the bundled LiveCycle Designer ES2 for Acrobat X Pro users.

Acrobat X Pro users will become more productive with the use of Actions. An action can be created from a series of steps in Acrobat then run by the user. One example is when publishing documents online, an Action could be made to remove hidden information, add a watermark, ensure accessibility features are enabled and add security. Once setup, the user never has to remember each particular step and settings, Acrobat ensures the same consistent results.

Of course, there is also a new version of Adobe Reader. Reader X includes a new secure sandbox environment, further integration with Adobe’s Acrobat.com online service, and great new commenting tools to allow you to add sticky notes & highlight any PDF!

If you’re like me, or other knowledge workers who work with documents, you most likely have hundreds, if not thousands of PDFs stashed away in folders on your computer. As much as I love Windows 7 , I was surprised to find out recently that the integrated search does not index PDF content!  Turns out that there is an easy fix from Adobe. Good news!

Adobe bundles an extension for Microsoft’s iFilter with Acrobat 9 and the free Reader 9, however 64bit users will need an additional download.

You’ll need to download the installer from Adobe at;
Adobe PDF iFilter 9 for 64-bit platforms

Once downloaded, run the installer, then when its complete follow the last instruction listed on the Adobe site;

“After installing the PDF iFilter, it is recommended that you set your system PATH environment variable to the “bin” folder of the “Ifilter” installation. For example, from the “Control PanelSystemAdvancedEnvironment Variables” tab, append to PATH “C:Program FilesAdobeAdobe PDF iFilter 9 for 64-bit platformsbin” and then restart the computer.”

Once you complete this last step, you should start to see PDF content being indexed the next time Windows scans through your file system. If you want to confirm everything was installed correctly, open the “Control Panel->Indexing Options->Advanced Options->File Types” and ensure that next to the PDF extension you see PDF Filter.

Acrobat 9 introduced the concept of PDF Portfolios, branded Flash based containers that allow the user to navigate through the files / content contained within the PDF. The portfolio is defined by a navigator, and these navigators are built using Flex. Adobe is running a competition where you could win great prizes by using your Flex skills to build a custom PDF portfolio. Check out these great prizes!

Contest First Place Winner:
Choice of either a Dell Adamo Desire or MacBook Air 2.13GHz

Second Place Winner:
Apple iPad wifi, 3G 32GB device

Third Place Winner:
HP Mini 5102 device

Top 10 entries:
Featured on Adobe.com**

Sweepstakes drawing:
Amazon Kindle

A panel of Adobe Acrobat experts will select 10 finalist entries. Representatives from several leading brand agencies and RIA design firms will then review the top 10 entries and select 3 winning entries. This is a great way to get your work in front of agencies looking for creative developers.

Australian entries are definitely welcome.. make us proud!

Full details are at http://www.acrobatusers.com/navigator-contest

Today I ran a live eSeminar introducing LiveCycle Designer ES2. In this session I covered how to build forms from scratch, included some tips and tricks along the way and included some of the latest features available in the latest Designer ES2 release.

The session was recorded and includes over 45 minutes of me demonstrating how to build a complete form from scratch. The recording is here;

http://pacific.adobe.acrobat.com/p29554294/

Here is the form I built:Leave Form (ok..  this is the form I built, but the other one is a bit tidier)

Some other useful links are here;

• http://www.acrobattown.com/au/
• http://www.adobe.com/ap/products/acrobatpro/tryout.html
• http://forms.stefcameron.com/
• http://blogs.adobe.com/stevex/
• http://www.adobe.com/devnet/livecycle/
• http://www.adobeeseminars.com.au/

In November I wrote about “must see” Acrobat.com improvements made by Adobe to its free online collaboration service.  In the press release about the latest version there was mention of work done by scanR to bring mobile integration to Acrobat.com users. This release for iPhone is now live on the iTunes app store.

So why use Acrobat.com on your iPhone?

The Acrobat.com mobile by scanR site explains the following workflows;

Work from anywhere – Access Acrobat.com files from your mobile phone, and easily share them with others as a link instead of a bulky e-mail attachment.

Scan to PDF – Use the camera on your mobile phone as a scanner and upload the images to Acrobat.com as PDFs.

Send faxes – Fax any of your Acrobat.com files directly from your mobile phone.

Print files – Print your Acrobat.com files by sending them to any fax-enabled printer.

What I really see useful is the collaboration benefits while out and about.

The idea of taking a photo of a whiteboard and sending to everyone in the room is great and something i’ve started doing. Being able to share documents immediately to someone you just met in a meeting instead of taking notes is also a bonus. Ultimately this app will speed up the way I work!

iPhone users can grab the app now and I understand that there is also support for Blackberry.

I’ve been getting a few laughs lately at presentations when I show this PDF supposedly from the US Congress claiming (on page 20) that budget is being set aside “to further the mission to capture and hold all the territories currently known as New Zealand and Australia “. I joke with the audience that obviously this is not a real document or we’re all in a lot of trouble, but the real point is

How would you know if the document is real or not?

Can you trust the person who gave it to you?

Who / where did they get it from?

Did someone hack the document?

Looking at things like the time & date stamp or the document metadata may give you some ideas, but these can be easily modified…

Have a look at the real US Congress document here and you’ll notice one small difference, the blue certification bar at the top of the document. In a Adobe terms this is called a Certified Document, a PDF document that has been wrapped in a digital ID that enforces the document’s creation time, author and integrity. It doesn’t matter how you obtain the document, from a trusted source or not, the blue bar & certificate is telling you that this is a trusted document.

So what makes the blue bar trustworthy? It’s a combination of Reader & Acrobat and a trusted certificate. Each trusted document must be wrapped in a digital id, the document must not have changed, and the certificate must be trusted by Adobe Reader or Acrobat.

Certifying the document is easy. Adobe Acrobat has allowed you to perform this function for many versions however a user must perform this action at the desktop. Adobe LiveCycle ES allows you to automatically certify documents either in batch mode via watch folders and other inputs, or in real time as document and forms are generated.

In both cases you need to obtain a digital certificate that is trusted by Adobe Reader & Acrobat. In a small group you can create a “Self Signed” certificate and share it between your colleagues, but that doesn’t scale well. For this reason, Adobe supports industry standard digital certificates provided by Verisign and other vendors.

When you open a certified document with a certificate that you haven’t seen before, you will need to “trust” the certificates origin. If it is a self sign certificate you’ll want to double check it’s from the person you think it is before trusting it. Trusting a certificate from a known certificate vendor like Verisign is easier as they verify the ID prior to issuing the certificate, that way you won’t end up with someone pretending to be the White House.

To make things even easier, Adobe has for a few years run a Certified Document Service program, where providers such as GeoTrust provided certificates that were automatically trusted by Reader. This is what the White House are using in the example above to make it easy for end users to trust the published files.

Finally Adobe have added something new called the “Adobe Approved Trust List” or AATL, where Adobe pre-approves vendors and certificate authorities based on strict authentication standards guidelines and place them on this “list” once approved.  Members of this list can then distribute content that is automatically authenticated and verified.  This means, if you are on this trust list, the content you email to users of Acrobat 9 and Reader 9, will be pre-approved and recipients will not need to go through the usual route of authenticating a document before it is opened.  The goal is to simplify the use of digital signatures in order to boost adoption. For more information information on AATL check out the Security Matters blog.

So now we have a way to provided trusted documents to anyone who uses Adobe Reader, using either Adobe Acrobat or LiveCycle ES to add our trusted certificate. Do people trust your documents?

Adobe has announced the upcoming release of LiveCycle ES Update 1. While this is a very important and interesting release, its focus is on overall improvements while adding a few new features along the way.

Whats new?
There are two significant new features that have been added to the LiveCycle platform, 3D PDF Generation & Content Management. The LiveCycle PDF Generator 3D ES addition allows server side creation of PDF documents with full 3D objects inside.. nothing new for PDF, but great for organisations that wish to automate this. LiveCycle Content Services ES is the result of a partnership with open source content management leaders Alfresco. This means that now LiveCycle has a perfect combination of eForms, Process Management & Content Management that is preintegrated out of the box. Need to trigger a process on content? Easy.. just call the LiveCycle Process in the CM web UI! Need to add Livecycle Rights Management to a PDF? Easy, just select the option!

What’s improved?
Where do I start? Process Record and playback, Improved Dev / Stage & Prod migration workflows, Business Calendars, Out of Office, Acrobat 9 & Flex 3 support, lots of tweaks to LiveCycle Designer and more, more, more.

This new release has some great new functionality to offer and I can’t wait to share some of the samples I’ve been building with you all.. meanwhile read more in the press release.