I know, I know, you can already open PDFs right? Google Chrome opens PDF files natively, Preview does an ok job on Mac OS X or you already have Reader 9 or earlier installed right.. why bother installing the Adobe PDF Reader? Lets have a look at the top 10 reasons you should put aside 10 minutes to download and install the latest free Adobe Reader X.

1. New user interface – Reader no longer gets in your way. If you open a PDF in the browser there are no clunky toolbars, you just get your PDF and even the standard browser zoom keys are supported. Nice!
2. Sandboxing – This is the safest way to view all those rich PDFs. The new sandbox (gory details here) protects you in much the same way as the latest version of Microsoft Office and Google Chrome do. If for whatever reason a hacker breaks into Reader, they are stuck in the sandbox and cannot hack your system.
3. Commenting - Reader supports both the highlighter tool and the popup note tool. Free! You dont even need the PDF to be created with Acrobat Pro like in previous versions. You can comment on ANY PDF as long as the author hasn’t restricted it via security or it is a dynamic PDF form.
4. Share – The new Share panel allows you to easily send the open document or other files via email or large files using Adobe’s new cloud based SendNow service. I use this all the time!
5. Latest PDF standards – Are you just crazy for standards? Reader X supports the latest PDF standards like PDF/A and ISO32000
6. Full support for Acrobat workflows – You can participate in real time document reviews initiated by Acrobat users without worrying about email attachments and multiple threads. As you comment on documents others can see it as well, and you can see their comments with a click of a button. You can even have a chat window open!
7. SharePoint integration – Use Microsoft’s Sharepoint solution? Now you can check PDF files out to let others know you are working on them, then check the file back in via a new menu option. Easy!
8. Fill in PDF Forms – Not just any PDF forms, but ones that shrink and grow depending the data you enter, making it easy for you to get it done and on to something else more enjoyable.
9. Reader Extensions – Acrobat users just love adding smarts to their PDFs that only Adobe Reader users can take advantage of. Things like drawing tools, stamps and more all light up when opened in Adobe Reader. PDF Forms created by Acrobat & LiveCycle users can even allow you to save the form partially filled out, and then come back to it later.
10. Open any PDF – Why have a PDF viewer that can’t read the latest and greatest? You’ll end up needing Adobe Reader anyway for Dynamic PDFs of all kinds including PDF Portfolios, Rights Managed PDFs, Dynamic PDF forms, rich PDF content that uses Flash and more.

All that in one application!  Download Adobe Reader X for free and don’t forget to update your parents PC too!

Upgrading a large amount of computers at once? Check out the IT Matters blog

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!

Adobe recently announced some key changes in the enhanced security feature with the January 2010 release of Acrobat & Reader.

1. Acrobat/Reader Trusted Sites now recognize files that comes from Windows Trusted Sites.

2. All of the enhanced security modal dialogs have been converted into information bar (i.e., yellow information bar that you would see in IE browser when you come across an ActiveX control). It allows end users to add sites to the privileged locations through the information bar if they run into cross domain connections in the context of their workflows.

3. Established an easier way for customers to turn on cross domain logging and read the log file through the Acrobat/Reader preferences.

4. The master policy no longer requires the strict MIME type of text/x-cross-domain-policy. Other content (or MIME) types include:

• text/
• application/xml
• application/xhtml+xml

For more information, visit ASSET ( Adobe Secure Software Engineering Team) blog

Over the last few days there have been a few updates and announcements of note to Acrobat & LiveCycle users, plus anyone running Adobe Reader (and that’s most of us right?)

Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.3 and 8.2

A new security update is available for Acrobat & Reader users. I’m by no means a security expert but I understand the importance of staying up to date, so that was reason enough for me to upgrade. If you’d like more details, have a read of Reader Product Manager Steve Gottwals blog post.

Adobe Reader and Acrobat Version 7 End of Support

As of December 28th, 2009 Adobe is no longer provide updates for Adobe Reader & Acrobat 7. The full details about the End of Support are covered here, but my suggestion is to download & install Adobe Reader 9 straight away, its free after all. Of course if you are managing a desktop rollout of thousands of PCs, then take a look at Adobe’s Enterprise Deployment site for tools to help you.

Adobe LiveCycle Designer ES2

Late last year Adobe released a new version of Adobe LiveCycle ES. Part of this included an update to the Designer tool that also is bundled as part of the Acrobat 9 Pro & Acrobat 9 Pro Extended 9 license. Owners of these versions of Acrobat can upgrade to the new version for a small fee via the online Adobe Store. Trust me, the Action Builder alone is worth the upgrade!

Missing out on all the fun? You can grab the trial version of Acrobat from here!

If you’re like me and have finally made the move to a 64bit version of Windows, be it Vista or Windows 7, you may have come across an annoying glitch related to PDF previews within Outlook 2007. Instead of displaying the PDF correctly you receive an error similar to “This file cannot be previewed because of an error with the following previewer: PDF Preview Handler for Vista -  To open this file in its own program, double-click it.”

Adobe Acrobat and Reader both come with Adobe PDF preview handlers for Outlook but the installer has a mistake which means the preview handler does not work on 64-bit systems. It turns out the problem can be fixed via a simple registry change.

All that needs to be done to correctly preview PDF docs in Outlook 2007 64bit is to first download the latest Adobe Reader, then add the following key to your registry;

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREWow6432NodeClassesCLSID{DC6EFB56-9CFA-464D-8880-44885D7DC193}]

"AppID"="{534A1E02-D58F-44f0-B58B-36CBED287C7C}"

The fix should only be applied to 64-bit versions of Windows that have Adobe Reader installed. Don’t apply the fix to 32-bit versions of Windows.  To install make it easier to configure, download the adobe_pdf_x64_fix, unzip then double-click the adobe_pdf_x64_fix.reg file and follow the prompts.

thanks to http://www.pretentiousname.com/adobe_pdf_x64_fix/index.html for this workaround..