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One question.

ewelch
Registered: Sep 28 2005
Posts: 4
Answered

I have to ask is Adobe out of their minds? They aren't releasing a version of Acrobat Pro Extended for Mac? Or do they not plan to sell a lot of this version even on the Windows side? Are there plans to add it later, like Premier which was brought back from the dead?

Let's see. Extended adds some features that could be very useful for content creation. Mac sales are increasing at up to 5X PC sales increases. They now have 7.6 percent market share (growing from 2.5-3 percent two years ago). Many universities are saying half of their students are buying Macs now. And Apple owns 66 percent market share of computers over $1,000. Considering we're talking about a $700 product, who's going to put it on a generic PC that costs $250? Oh wait, my company's IT department would.

I understand why Adobe doesn't make a Standard version for Mac. Preview might be considered to compete with that product. I was happy as long as they made just one version that had all the features (or at least the vast majority of features) of the top-end Windows version.

But now I'm seeing features in the Extended version that could help my department (which is moving to an all-Mac environment) do its work. We're a non-profit research and and educational institute with schools in 14 countries.

Acrobat is for more than Business!

My Product Information:
Acrobat Pro 8.1.2, Macintosh
alihanyaloglu
Acrobat 9Adobe EmployeeExpertTeam
Registered: Jan 30 2006
Posts: 30
What functionality in Acrobat 9 Pro Extended for “content creation” do you feel you need on the Mac? It’s important to take a look at what is unique to Acrobat 9 Pro Extended to understand why there is not a version for Mac OS X.

1) Acrobat 9 Pro Extended includes Adobe Presenter 7. Adobe Presenter 7 is an add-in for Microsoft PowerPoint on Windows for publishing content as Flash presentations with audio, video, Flash animations and apps, quizzes and more. This is a former Macromedia product, and has only ever been available for PowerPoint on Windows for technical reasons.

2) Acrobat 9 Pro Extended includes the ability to convert various video formats to Flash video embedded in a PDF. A very large majority of our Acrobat customers who use Mac OS X (which by the way, includes me), obtained their version of Acrobat as part of the Creative Suite. CS3 includes the Flash CS3 Video Encoder. So those users have the ability to convert video formats to FLV already. The converter in Acrobat 9 Pro Extended is based on the one in CS3. And the Flash Video Encoder included with CS3 supports batch conversion of video too.

3) Acrobat 9 Pro Extended includes the ability to Geospatially Register “PDF maps”. This is NOT converting raw GIS data to geospatially-aware PDF maps. That is done by specialist and advanced GIS software such as those from companies like ESRI. These are Windows applications, in Windows environments, for those whose job it is to create these maps as PDF or otherwise. The functionality in Acrobat 9 Pro Extended allows these users to manually add geospatial information - such as the longitude-latitude bounding box - to an existing image of a map in a PDF, such as one that’s been scanned. It can also import geoTIFF and geospatially-aware JPEG2000 image files and retain the geospatial coordinate information when saved as a PDF file.

It’s important to note that the entire Acrobat 9 family can consume geospatially-aware PDF maps with the Geospatial Location Tool to view, find (which can be done in Reader 9 too), measure distances and markup locations (which Reader 9 can also do if the document has been enabled for extended features in Adobe Reader from Acrobat 9 Pro or Acrobat 9 Pro Extended).

4) Acrobat 9 Pro Extended includes 3D functionality. Acrobat 3D versions 7 and 8 were also Windows-only. Why? These had features and functionality for those in the CAD/CAM space (who are using products such as AutoCAD, Solidworks, Catia, and so on). These are very document-centric users that need to securely collaborate on designs to ensure accuracy. Again, this is overwhelmingly a Windows marketplace. Acrobat 9 Pro on the Mac includes a 3D tool to add U3D to a PDF, just as before.

Ali Hanyaloglu
Adobe Systems Incorporated
@acroboy

torch_55
Registered: May 20 2008
Posts: 2
Is there going to be a version 9 Acrobat for the Mac? If so, when? What enhandements will it have?

alihanyaloglu wrote:
What functionality in Acrobat 9 Pro Extended for “content creation” do you feel you need on the Mac? It’s important to take a look at what is unique to Acrobat 9 Pro Extended to understand why there is not a version for Mac OS X.1) Acrobat 9 Pro Extended includes Adobe Presenter 7. Adobe Presenter 7 is an add-in for Microsoft PowerPoint on Windows for publishing content as Flash presentations with audio, video, Flash animations and apps, quizzes and more. This is a former Macromedia product, and has only ever been available for PowerPoint on Windows for technical reasons.

2) Acrobat 9 Pro Extended includes the ability to convert various video formats to Flash video embedded in a PDF. A very large majority of our Acrobat customers who use Mac OS X (which by the way, includes me), obtained their version of Acrobat as part of the Creative Suite. CS3 includes the Flash CS3 Video Encoder. So those users have the ability to convert video formats to FLV already. The converter in Acrobat 9 Pro Extended is based on the one in CS3. And the Flash Video Encoder included with CS3 supports batch conversion of video too.

3) Acrobat 9 Pro Extended includes the ability to Geospatially Register “PDF maps”. This is NOT converting raw GIS data to geospatially-aware PDF maps. That is done by specialist and advanced GIS software such as those from companies like ESRI. These are Windows applications, in Windows environments, for those whose job it is to create these maps as PDF or otherwise. The functionality in Acrobat 9 Pro Extended allows these users to manually add geospatial information - such as the longitude-latitude bounding box - to an existing image of a map in a PDF, such as one that’s been scanned. It can also import geoTIFF and geospatially-aware JPEG2000 image files and retain the geospatial coordinate information when saved as a PDF file.

It’s important to note that the entire Acrobat 9 family can consume geospatially-aware PDF maps with the Geospatial Location Tool to view, find (which can be done in Reader 9 too), measure distances and markup locations (which Reader 9 can also do if the document has been enabled for extended features in Adobe Reader from Acrobat 9 Pro or Acrobat 9 Pro Extended).

4) Acrobat 9 Pro Extended includes 3D functionality. Acrobat 3D versions 7 and 8 were also Windows-only. Why? These had features and functionality for those in the CAD/CAM space (who are using products such as AutoCAD, Solidworks, Catia, and so on). These are very document-centric users that need to securely collaborate on designs to ensure accuracy. Again, this is overwhelmingly a Windows marketplace. Acrobat 9 Pro on the Mac includes a 3D tool to add U3D to a PDF, just as before.
alihanyaloglu
Acrobat 9Adobe EmployeeExpertTeam
Registered: Jan 30 2006
Posts: 30
torch_55 wrote:
Is there going to be a version 9 Acrobat for the Mac? If so, when? What enhandements will it have?
Absolutely! Acrobat 9 Pro for Mac will be available at the same time as the rest of the Acrobat 9 family (expected July 2008). Check the Acrobat product pages to find out what's new and enhanced: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatpro/features/

Ali Hanyaloglu
Adobe Systems Incorporated
@acroboy

ewelch
Registered: Sep 28 2005
Posts: 4
alihanyaloglu wrote:
What functionality in Acrobat 9 Pro Extended for “content creation” do you feel you need on the Mac? It’s important to take a look at what is unique to Acrobat 9 Pro Extended to understand why there is not a version for Mac OS X.1) Acrobat 9 Pro Extended includes Adobe Presenter 7. Adobe Presenter 7 is an add-in for Microsoft PowerPoint on Windows for publishing content as Flash presentations with audio, video, Flash animations and apps, quizzes and more. This is a former Macromedia product, and has only ever been available for PowerPoint on Windows for technical reasons.
Thanks for the thoughtful response. And my answer to you is #1. My company could use the functionality right now, as we are moving our printed material online for SCORM-complaint LMSs.

Right now we seem to have found one program that fits our immediate needs to do it quickly. But it is far from ideal. I won't mention the name of the product, but I have to say it is hardly an ideal solution. It's simplistic interface, lack of flexibility, and locking us into an old technology - Actionscript 2 - are major detracting points. Not only that, it's Windows-only as well. So we're stuck. Our material is award-winning, but moving from a dead-tree product to an LMS is testing our appreciation for the software development community.

Maybe Acrobat Pro 9 Extended isn't for us either. But maybe it would be. Considering we're stuck with a Windows-only product as it is, is simply a symptom of the the way things are I suppose.

I would be interested to know what the technical issues are that requires Presenter 7 to be Windows-only. PowerPoint has been on the Mac longer than it was on Windows. Is it the video file format Microsoft chose to support? (WMV vs Quicktime?) I've never had a problem moving PowerPoint presentations between me on my Mac and others on PCs. And we produce hundreds and hundreds of PowerPoints our teachers use in our classrooms around the world.
jbfreels
Registered: Feb 19 2008
Posts: 63
Quote:
I would be interested to know what the technical issues are that requires Presenter 7 to be Windows-only. PowerPoint has been on the Mac longer than it was on Windows. Is it the video file format Microsoft chose to support? (WMV vs Quicktime?) I've never had a problem moving PowerPoint presentations between me on my Mac and others on PCs.
Mainly because of PowerPoints ability to embed content from other applications through OLE (which may not be Mac compatible).

-jb
ewelch
Registered: Sep 28 2005
Posts: 4
jbfreels wrote:
Quote:
I would be interested to know what the technical issues are that requires Presenter 7 to be Windows-only. PowerPoint has been on the Mac longer than it was on Windows. Is it the video file format Microsoft chose to support? (WMV vs Quicktime?) I've never had a problem moving PowerPoint presentations between me on my Mac and others on PCs.
Mainly because of PowerPoints ability to embed content from other applications through OLE (which may not be Mac compatible).

-jb
Ah, yep, that would be the problem. Another reason to never use PowerPoint and to do Acrobat-based presentations to begin with!