Including Acrobat Reader on Manual CD-ROM

[Diane Gaskill]

Dave, 

I've done what your RFP asks for, but it was with an older version of Acrobat Reader.
I installed Reader on the hard disk and then just copied the entire tree to a CD.  It
worked fine.  However, Adobe has added security features to most of its products
and I cannot say whether this method will work with the current version of Acrobat.
But it's worth a try.  BTW, the product I had documented ran only on a Windows system
so there was no question regarding platforms.

I would expect that whoever wrote the RFP has no question about platfrms, and since
you are documenting the software, that you already know exactly what platform the
users will have.

Incidentally, I also included a readme.txt file on the CD that provided the link to the Acrobat Reader
page on Adobe's website in case the users ran into any problems with the installed application.  But
to my knowledge, no one ever did.

HTH

Diane Gaskill


-----Original Message-----
>From: Alan Litchfield <alan at alphabyte.co.nz>
>Sent: Apr 12, 2006 6:22 PM
>To: framers at lists.frameusers.com
>Subject: RE: Including Acrobat Reader on Manual CD-ROM
>
>Hmm. They more than likely meant that they didn't people to install software
>on their computer just so they could read the files on the CD.
>
>Seems to me:
>1. Whoever wrote the RFP may have limited/no understanding of the requirements
>of multiple platforms when publishing on CDROM.
>2. Whoever wrote the RFP possibly assumes the CDROM will only ever be run on
>one platform.
>3. Whoever wrote the RFP may not understand that a program is often integrated
>with its OS, which makes it difficult to distribute a program that has not
>been installed into that environment.
>
>Of course, there are more programs around than just Reader that can open and
>display the contents of a PDF. Depends on what other features they need, like
>bookmarks, etc. And it depends on what platform(s) you are distributing for.
>
>Cheers
>Alan
>
>Joanne Curme said:
>> They probably meant they want a compatible version of Reader included on the
>> CD-ROM so users can install Reader from the CD. They want to avoid the
>> situation of users being unable to read the docs because they don't have the
>> right Reader. It also means users won't need an Internet connection to hunt
>> for and download the right version of Reader.
>>
>> Joanne
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: framers-bounces+joanne=exeros.com at lists.frameusers.com
>> [mailto:framers-bounces+joanne=exeros.com at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of
>> David Bills
>> Sent: Wednesday, April 12, 2006 5:22 PM
>> To: framers at lists.frameusers.com
>> Subject: OT: Including Acrobat Reader on Manual CD-ROM
>>
>> Hi Everyone,
>>
>> I'm familiar with providing an Acrobat Reader installation file on the
>> manual CD-ROM, but I just received an RFP that specifies, "Each CD-ROM shall
>> have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed to enable the user to read the manual by
>> using the CD-ROM only." I spent some time searching Adobe's Web site, but
>> didn't find any information on a version of Acrobat Reader that runs
>> directly from the CD-ROM. If anyone is aware of where I can find this
>> information on Adobe's site, would you please send me the URL.
>>
>> Thanks in advance,
>>
>> Dave Bills
>> _______________________________________________