acrobat

A couple weeks ago I wrote about the many software products that had recently been updated with important bug fixes. Among these was the Adobe Acrobat Reader whose self-updating feature is invoked with Help -> Check for Updates...

There is a bug, however, in the self-update process.

On a Windows XP machine running version 8.1.0 of the Adobe Acrobat Reader, the self-update scan found an available update to version 8.1.1. The install of this update ran just fine. Someone who knew that the Adobe Reader needed to be updated, would think they had done their … Read more

We've been giving some play to Adobe Acrobat replacements and other PDF tools in the last few weeks, and it's clear people are serious about handling a large variety of document types without having to muck about with the right software or browser extensions.

To that end Scribd, a start-up that's all about documents and how to share them with others, has had a solution of its own using Adobe's FlashPaper and crunching all sorts of documents to fit in it. This morning the company launched its own viewer that not only replaces FlashPaper, but also improves upon its design for both users and publishers.

The new viewer is called iPaper. While the name might bring to mind Apple products of yore, the document viewer is a total Acrobat killer. It's fast, lightweight, and is designed with Web readers in mind. While it may look similar to FlashPaper, there are several key differences that make it much better suited for long documents, photos, and Web videos.

The biggest one being that iPaper has been designed with publishers in mind. The viewer goes hand-in-hand with a new publishing platform that lets Web publishers integrate advertising into documents or media they feel like sharing. There are no preroll or off-to-the-side ads; instead Scribd has worked in Google AdSense text ads that have been put between every few document pages and that slurp up contextual ads based on what's contained the document (example here). It's effective and not annoying.

Secondly, the publishing platform lets site owners integrate iPaper into their sites. There are three basic ways to do it. The first is basic embedding (which existed before iPaper), as well as a tool called QuickSwitch that will automatically convert any linked document into a hosted iPaper player when site owners install a small line of code on their page. For power users, there's also an open API that lets them integrate iPaper and document conversion into the back end of their sites or services.

While I think Adobe will eventually address the bloat that Acrobat has become for Web users, it's up to publishers to take a proactive approach to letting the greatest number of users access content in the same way they read words or watch videos. For that, Flash is definitely a phenomenal go-to. The iPaper document viewer shows promise at unifying document sharing by lowering the barrier to entry for users who simply don't want to deal with the hassle of extra applications.

I've embedded an example of the iPaper viewer after the break. Be sure to play around with the table of contents and zoom controls.… Read more

Hot on the heels of my writeup of PDFMeNot yesterday, reader Bonexaw tipped us off about PDFescape, another Web based Adobe Acrobat replacement. This time around, PDFescape pulls double duty not only as a free PDF reader, but also as an editing tool and Web host for PDF files.

PDFescape lets users fill out forms--one of the most commonly used features (besides reading). Additionally, the authoring tools let users create their own forms and send them out to others to fill out and send back. The best part is that the entire system is set up to avoid recipients having … Read more

Note: This service officially launches on Thursday, and the site is password-protected until then. The folks at PDFMeNot gave us early access to share with Webware readers. Use the username "stateless" and password "systems" when prompted (no quotation marks either). Note that both are case sensitive.

One of life's little hassles is opening PDF links in a Web browser. The problem centers on Adobe's Acrobat software, which for all its popularity and genuine usefulness is notoriously slow. Depending on how old the system is, and the speed of the computers Internet connection, the application … Read more

Over the weekend, security vendor iDefense reported three specific exploits affecting a fully patched version of Adobe Acrobat and Reader 8.1 running on Windows. In each of the cases, the attacker would need to have the users open a specially crafted PDF file delivered via an e-mail attachment or linked from a Web site. In response, Adobe has released a security update, Adobe Acrobat and Reader 8.1.2.

The Adobe Reader and Acrobat JavaScript insecure method exposure vulnerability affects users of Adobe Reader 8.1 on Windows XP SP2 and is to be further detailed in CVE-2007-5663. According … Read more

Ever had a PDF file or two laying around that needed some minor tweaks, but you didn't wanna fork over the cash for a full version of Adobe Acrobat, or install some other PDF application such a rare task? Give PDF Hammer a look. The service lets you do simple page re-arrangement on PDFs of all sizes, and when you're finished it'll spit it out as one big, beautiful file. The service is pretty simple to use, and lets you upload multiple files without losing any rearranging or deleting progress you might have made. You can also … Read more

On Monday, Adobe released a patch for versions 8.1 and earlier of its Acrobat and Acrobat Reader. This patch affects Windows XP SP2 with IE7 and Adobe Reader 7 through 8.1 and addresses the flaws cited in CVE-2007-5020. If exploited, a criminal hacker could launch malicious code on an affected system.

Security researcher Petko D. Petkov first blogged about the vulnerablity in September and predicted that shortly after the patch's release there would be a flood of proof-of-concept exploits on the Internet. He was right. Because of the extremely high risk, Adobe is encouraging everyone to install … Read more

Adobe Systems is trying to find a way out of a thorny fix--a deal with FedEx Kinko's that outraged other printing companies--and part of the strategy is a public mea culpa by a senior executive.

Bruce Chizen, Adobe's chief executive, and John Loiacono, head of the company's creative products division, met Tuesday with a group of print industry leaders, Loiacono said on his blog after the meeting. "They were tough on us. Big-time tough," he said Wednesday. "At the end of the discussion, we committed to coming back to them within two weeks with … Read more

Adobe Acrobat 8, which shipped two months before the January release of Windows Vista, can now run on Vista and Citrix 64-bit systems. Acrobat and Reader version 8.1 enhancements will download with Adobe update notifications and can be found at Adobe's Web site.

There's also new integration with Microsoft Office 2007, such as the capability to create a PDF file by right-clicking the mouse from within supported applications. Microsoft Outlook 2007 can now preview multipage PDF files within e-mail messages, just as it already displays Office documents. And Mac users will be able to view Flash movies … Read more