While comprising only 15 or so minutes of a podcast running more than 75 minutes, the Q&A with “Adobe Acrobat 8 & PDF Bible” author (and Acrobat User Community blogger) Ted Padova is enlightening on several levels.
During the Book Bytes segment of the April 9 MyMac.com podcast #124, host and columnist John Nemerovski poses numerous questions about the book–one of 25 authored by the prolific Padova–and about Acrobat. Nemerovski praises Padova’s conversational writing style, saying he’s “incredibly impressed by this book.” At the same time, he wonders why there’s a need for users to purchase and read such a massive tome–more than 1,000 pages–if, as Padova states, Adobe’s built-in Help documentation is indeed excellent.
After goodnaturedly pointing out that his Acrobat 8 Bible is a “pageturner … that keeps you awake,” Padova explains that the book elaborates on many of the tools and features briefly described in the Help files, and also provides information about a number of useful, but undocumented, features. In addition, Padova says, “there are still a lot of people who prefer to have a handheld item they can carry around or browse at their leisure, without having to sit behind a computer.”
On the other hand, for those who don’t mind straddling a keyboard to enhance their Acrobat knowledge and skills, the book includes a CD-ROM with an eBook version of the full-text book (indexed for fast searching), sample PDF forms with related JavaScript snippets, a variety of chapter-oriented sample files created by the author, several Flash-based demos and a collection of resources with links.
As he has in all of the books he’s written, Padova says he conspicuously includes his e-mail address, part of an obligation he feels to support users through the life of a product. “I actually look forward to hearing from readers,” he says, “and enjoy the interactivity.” (He also answers user questions in the “Ask an Expert” section of AcrobatUsers.com).
In one of his final podcast questions, Nemerovski asks “How long does it take to become familiar with the zillions of tools, palettes and preferences in Acrobat 8 Pro?”
Padova’s lengthy response offers an insight into the effort and dedication that goes into each book.
“Adobe is in a revision cycle with its software for once about every 18 months,” Padova says. “The thing that I’ve found is that I never completely learn everything about a software product during its lifespan.”
“When I write the Acrobat PDF Bible, I’m writing it initially during the beta period–it’s a three- to four-month project. I’m spending 12-16 hours a day, seven days a week during those months and there’s no way I can learn every single thing related to that program.”
Padova says that some of the Acrobat engineers at Adobe have even told him they use his book as a reference. As the programming is split across different teams that each write certain portions of the overall application, he says, “even at Adobe Systems, you don’t find anyone who knows everything about a program.”
“So to answer your question on how long it takes, I would say ‘Never.’”
“What we can hope to do,” Padova says, “is master those features of a given product that help us with our jobs–to accomplish the kind of tasks we routinely do on a day-to-day basis and to do them effectively and efficiently.”
The gospel truth, you might say.
NOTE: If you want to jump directly to the Book Bytes segment of the podcast, it begins around the 56-minute mark. Or we have posted on AcrobatUsers.com–with permission of MyMac.com–an edited audio segment containing just the Padova interview. In it, Padova addresses a number of other Acrobat-oriented queries posed by the host.
Today’s 
As Lori DeFurio first noted recently on her 
