This used to my biggest gripe about Acrobat Reader – for all its bulk and bloat, all it could do is read. Of course, you could generate some really good electronic forms with Reader Pro, but it was never really useful because, it was required that every user who is ever going to fill that form needs to have a Reader Pro too – an incredibly expensive solution. It was.
Adobe has taken on board, the one biggest push back from the customers of Acrobat Reader 8. On the new Acrobat Reader 9, anybody can fill, save and submit documents – with just the free Reader. Now , when you create a form, you can choose to allow saving on Acrobat Reader, and it will allow any user with Acrobat Reader to save, print or submit a completed form. Also, when the 50 users you distributed the form to, submit the form, you don’t need to receive 50 PDFs back, you can choose to consolidate the information in a spreadsheet for analysis and reporting. That for me, is a major improvement in workflow.
Some of the other major new features include
- Encapsulating multiple PDFs into one PDF portfolio
- PDF presenter – powerpoint type presentations with rich media
- Form creation from scanned paper forms!
- Commenting and reviewing from Acrobat Reader (extended version not required)
Do check out Adobe Acrobat Reader 9 and the extended version here.