Duff Johnson’s PDF Perspective

The deities managing major software release schedules didn’t smile on Adobe late last year.  Acrobat 8 rolled out just before Vista became the latest Microsoft mega-project to emerge years late and to weak (very weak) applause.

As a result, Adobe was in the somewhat uncomfortable position of launching new software that didn’t actually work as intended on XP’s newly released designated successor OS.  Arguments for Vista remain light on substance, heavy on “ribbons” (and RAM).  Buyers of new machines are glumly accepting the Newer Is Better mantra, but few are rushing to adopt the new OS.  Vista just isn’t a lot better than XP, and precious few users come close to appreciating the distinction more than they curse fresh learning curves, software upgrade costs and other obstacles to Getting Real Work Done.

The upshot is that Acrobat’s temporary inability to gain full operation under Vista may not have caused that much stress after all.

Anyhow, those days are over, 8.1 is out.  For details, check out Ted’s latest article, he’s summarized the goodies nicely.

For my part, I’m here to commend Adobe for one very important development - the timely release of a Technical Note that identifies changes and (very important) the bug-fixes that went into 8.1.  This sort of thing is a long-time request of the Acrobat power-user community, and it’s nice to see up-to-the-minute attention to this point from Adobe.  Some bugs do remain, of course, and there’s at least one new bug that I’ll personally enjoy seeing squashed in a future release. But that’s in the nature of the beast.

OK, so why the Big Deal, the “Full Dot” release?  Adobe doesn’t do it very often, and in this case, the new release is more about engineering enhancements than new features.  Some of the changes (Vista support, Office 2007 support) are things you’d just expect from an expensive mainstream business desktop application such as Acrobat.  Better integration with Adobe’s InDesign and improved Designer/XFA forms is welcome, but most users couldn’t care less.  So what’s up, Doc?

Apart from the underwhelming news that Acrobat now supports Vista and MS Office 2007, there are two main changes that consumers are likely to notice. I’m just not sure either one is for the better.

First and most obvious (some would say, garish), is the new Kinko’s button appearing on Reader’s default toolbar. (Acrobat users craving this functionality may add this button via toolbar customization).  Following the new tradition of glorified weblinks deployed as toolbar buttons, the new Kinko’s button launches an web-based process that can result in the upload, printing, binding and delivery of your PDF via a Kinko’s service center.

The big up-side, I guess, is that Adobe gets paid for their endorsement of the Kinko’s printing platform for US-based users of Reader.  That’s a lot of people, so it must be worth something.  It’s also true that users in the US get the option of sending PDFs directly to Kinko’s (and Kinko’s alone) from Reader.

The down-side is that taking unnecessary partisan positions in affiliated industries and the effective denial of equivalent functionality to all users of the software can undermine the sense of ubiquity, and ubiquity is the essence of the Reader value proposition.

Adobe shouldn’t inject themselves into the print-vendor playing field - that is - unless they want to give 3rd parties yet more reasons to find ways around using Reader.  The Kinko’s button can’t be reprogrammed for the PDF author’s choice of vendor.  Whether your application properly includes print service bureau functions or not, the “Kinko’s Edition” Reader is always ready to help spend your money and kill more trees. (Although for some reason, the Customize Toolbars UI in Reader 8.1 strongly implies that the Kinko’s button is only available if Document Rights are enabled, which certainly isn’t the case!)

Users outside the US (there are a few) get to look at the Kinko’s button and click it for fun, but no more  Deployed globally in the industry-leading viewer for the leading electronic document format, this button is useless outside the US.  That’s not good geopolitics; the US already has a perception problem abroad.  Do US-based software companies really want into that act?

OK, you can switch off those whine filters now.

The second change consumers are likely to notice in 8.1 is the new “quick and simple” PDF creation option, which uses the EMF printing functionality in Vista, highly preferable (in speed terms) to the thrashing of the Make PDF plugin, if nothing else.

What is a “quick and simple” PDF, anyhow?  Who cares, right? It’s quick and it “looks fine”.  That’s all most users have ever wanted to know, and now they can get it from Adobe software as well.  Sound familiar?  Old-timers may be forgiven if it seems that the long-defunct PDF Writer, once buried by Adobe for making lousy PDF, has risen again.

Adobe are clearly responding to a very real desire for a faster PDF creation method, one more akin (ulp!) to Microsoft’s own EMF-based Save As PDF Add-In, or the PDF Export feature in the free Open Office suite, which is also blazing fast and turns out a plausible PDF.

The question is my mind is whether it’s a good idea for the health of the PDF platform (as opposed to Acrobat’s next business quarter) for Adobe to stoop to generic methods for PDF creation, thereby promoting dumbed-down output and lowering the barriers to the competition.  Microsoft’s PDF-from-EMF is, one assumes, just as good as Adobe’s PDF-from-EMF.

On the other hand, perhaps the mere fact that users will be offered the choice between “quick and simple” and “regular” PDF might get them thinking about all the things they might be missing if they go “quick and simple”.  Time will tell. In any event, PDF Writer is BACK.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 13th, 2007 at 10:06 am and is filed under Adobe-Watching, Acrobat 8. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.