Adobe Acrobat 5.0 - Aug/Sep '01

Adobe Acrobat 5.0

Adobe Acrobat 5.0 is the latest evolution of the venerable document-sharing program. As discussed in the Lawyers’ Document Toolkit, (April/May 2001 Law Office Computing), Adobe Acrobat enables documents to be shared with people who don’t own the application that created the original document. By using the free Acrobat Reader, you can view and print a document in its original format.

There is more to Acrobat 5.0 than simply creating Portable Document Format (PDF) files. Acrobat 5.0 boosts new features that will make practicing law in the 21st century easier. Two features that might interest lawyers are repurposing content and enhanced protection of shared documents.

Repurposing Content
Acrobat 5.0’s “Repurposing Content” feature enables others to share the contents of their electronic Adobe PDF documents with you. You can save an Adobe PDF provided by opposing counsel as a Rich Text Format (RTF) file, and then easily incorporate text from the RTF file into pleadings and contracts, unless the sender has added security that disables this action.

Acrobat 5.0 also lets you extract images or text from Adobe PDF documents and save them as TIFF, JPEG or PNG files. The images can then be incorporated into word processing, presentation, page layout, HTML and other files. Each exportable format provides additional options for fine-tuning the conversion. When exporting to TIFF, for example, you can determine the resolution (from 72 to 600 dots per inch (dpi)), and other settings.

I found this feature especially useful when bringing a PDF form into Caere’s OmniForm 4.0 (www.caere.com) program, which used to choke whenever I attempted to print a PDF file using the OmniForm print driver.

With Adobe Acrobat 5.0, I can save the PDF form as a 300 dpi TIFF file, and then bring the TIFF file into OmniForm, which will automatically insert the form fields.

Unfortunately, Acrobat 5.0 still requires adding form fields manually, and doesn’t have the automatic capability of OmniForm. However, Acrobat is a form-authoring environment. There are products out there that can take a flat PDF and convert it to a fillable PDF form by environment placing the form fields on it. Products, such as Liquid Forms, automatically can generate a fillable PDF without the need to convert to TIFF.

Protect Shared Documents
One of the significant reasons for sending a PDF file is the ability to ensure document integrity. For example, attorneys often send contracts electronically, which are confidential and should not be altered. Acrobat 5.0 provides enhanced protection and controls so you can securely share sensitive documents online.

Previous versions of Acrobat only supported 40-bit level encryption. Acrobat 5.0 now supports optional 128-bit encryption, allowing you to control access to certain documents by assigning passwords.

Also supported is a flexible digital signature architecture allowing third-party digital signature and Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) vendors such as Entrust Technologies, VeriSign Inc. and Communication Intelligence Corp. (CIC) to seamlessly and consistently plug into Acrobat and enable e-Signatures on an Adobe PDF file.

In addition, Acrobat provides an out-of-the box public private key solution for workgroups in which a third-party certificate authority isn’t required.

Other New Features
While not as significant to most legal professionals, Acrobat 5.0, also enables online collaboration through its support of WebDAV (WebDistributed Authoring and Versioning) and other industry standard protocols such as ODBC (Open Database Connectivity) and Microsoft Office Server Extensions, online form capabilities, accessibility support for disabled users, enhanced output controls and tighter integration with third-party applications.

I personally like the new “PDF Consultant” features, which can detect and remove unwanted document elements, report on total size and elements used in a file, and optimize the PDF file by removing invalid elements.

There is also a new paper capture plug-in that allows users to OCR (Optical Character Recognition) scanned paper documents and replace the scan with formatted text or leave the scan alone and add text to the document as a separate layer.

The ability to create PDF files alone makes investing in Acrobat 5.0 a smart decision.

No other file format enables you to seamlessly share electronic copies of contracts or pleadings with counsel, clients and others.

While programs such as the newer versions of WordPerfect incorporate built-in PDF file publishing, Acrobat 5.0 provides a number of additional tools, such as repurposing.

This makes owning the full-blown version of Acrobat 5.0 well worth the purchase price.

Adobe Systems Inc.
www.adobe.com
(800) 272-3623

Windows 95/98/ME/NT 4.0/2000 and Macintosh 8.6/9.0.4/9.1

Price: $249 for 1 user; $99 for upgrade.

Reviewed by Michael W. Newcomb, Mayfield & Associates, Solana Beach, Calif.

Aug/Sep '01 Issue

PROS
The PDF format is ubiquitous, and Acrobat 5.0 does what it promises.

CONS
Cost prohibitive when implementing the software across a firm.

VERDICT
Every firm needs at least one copy of Acrobat 5.0 to bridge the document format divide.