Digital Home Thoughts: Adobe's Creative Suite 2 Premium Reviewed

Acrobatic Events
You probably use or see .pdf files every day. Adobe has done quite well in marketing this as the new industry standard to essentially replace postscript. From Wikipedia: When PDF first came out in the early 1990s, it was slow to catch on. At the time, not only did the only PDF creation tools of the time (Acrobat) cost money, but so did the software to view and print PDF files. Early versions of the PDF format had no support for external hyperlinks, reducing its usefulness on the web. Additionally, there were competing formats such as Envoy, Common Ground Digital Paper, DjVu and even Adobe's own PostScript file format (.ps). Adobe started distributing the Acrobat Reader program at no cost, and continued to support PDF through its slow multi-year ramp-up. Competing formats eventually died out, and PDF became a well-accepted standard. Adobe Acrobat Professional (with Adobe Designer) (Figure 30), is the newest version this well-used .pdf creation software.


Figure 30: You can even test your content for the very small screen (such as a cellphone).

While you can just as easily send your content directly from any of the Adobe applications into a .pdf file, you can also create (Figure 31) the portable document from file (or multiple files), scanned pages (even multiple sides on a flatbed scanner), clipboard images, or web pages.


Figure 31: Content can be created inside Acrobat from file(s), scanned pages, clipboard images, or even web pages.

Prior to CS2, if you wanted someone to be able to review, comment, and markup your file (Figure 32), that user needed Acrobat Professional. Now, users with Acrobat Reader 7 or above can participate in this same process without having to pay for the full blown version.


Figure 32: In this version of Acrobat, even users of Acrobat Reader 7 or above can add markup (such I've done in Acrobat Professional).

Also new in this version of Acrobat is the Organizer (Figure 33), which can help you manage, find, and organize your .pdf content.


Figure 33: Adobe Acrobat's new Organizer helps you find and manage .pdf content.

Want to make a fill-in .pdf form? Now Adobe Designer is included with Adobe Acrobat Professional (sorry Mac folks, Windows only as of this review). You can create from scratch, use a template, or even import existing .pdf files (Figure 34). A handy feature to say the least.


Figure 34: Designer can even import existing .pdf content and convert it to a fill-in form.

I recall when Adobe introduced the .pdf format. I also recall the cost was quite extraordinary. Once Adobe Acrobat Reader became free, more and more companies expected this as the delivery format. We worked out a few ways to produce the .pdf files without using Acrobat, and there are open source projects that still exist today (and which I've used quite heavily in the past), that allow for quick .pdf creation. But once again, Adobe, with its focus on integration, has made this a very useful and simple tool to produce content that can be read and even commented upon by those who have the newest Reader versions. A strong application we should see more of in the future.

Conclusions
Phew! What a lot of content. And we've barely scratched the surface of this suite. In all Adobe Creative Suite 2 Premium presents a plethora of tools, options, and the integration has yet to be matched by any other graphic design company to date. After almost six months of pounding through this software, I'm still using the apps I used before, but with less and less frequency. Slowly but surely, Adobe is taking over my design world and perhaps yours too.

Tim Adams currently hails from the Pacific Northwest (specifically Oregon), and is the I.S. Director for a group of MRI facilities. Tim also is an avid musician (samples can be listened/downloaded from Acidplanet).