FM8 and Acrobat Pro 9
Austin Meredith
Ashley_Meredith at brown.edu
Thu Jun 5 08:01:53 PDT 2008
The problems we are having with Acrobat Pro 8 are problems of 1.) the
very significant processing effort that is required, to re-distill an
updated FM8 file into an updated PDF suitable for posting to the
internet, and 2.) the frequency with which Acrobat Pro 8 suddenly
crashes. This processing is a real drag on our productivity. The
questions I should be asking, therefore, are 1.) has any FM user
found there to be a significant improvement in the convenience of
distillation, between Acrobat8 and Acrobat9? -- and 2.) is anyone
finding Acrobat 9 to be any more stable, that is, less crash-prone
during distillation, than Acrobat 8?
The unexplained crashes we get are of two sorts. One sort of crash is
the one we get in Acrobat Pro 8, during the process of distillation,
and then when we repeat our procedure, the distillation succeeds
without any further problem. The other sort of crash is the one we
get in the Adobe Reader, when we attempt to open the resultant PDF
across the internet. Here, by way of an example, is an Acrobat 8 PDF
that has been distilled out of a FM8 file, that has a history of
three times out of four crashing the Adobe Reader when an attempt is
made to access it on the internet using a fast cable connection (and
then with perhaps the fourth attempt, opening perfectly without any
problem): http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/thumbnails/C/AlexanderChalmers.pdf
> > Acrobat Pro 9 is just being released. Since we presently distill our
> > FM8 files into PDFs with Acrobat8 -- should we upgrade immediately to
> > Acrobat9, or should we "wait for the dust to settle"?
>
>Upgrading to a new version of a tool just because it exists has never made
>any sense to me. Unless there is some incompatibility in your current working
>environment, or unless there is some new feature in Acrobat 9 that would
>be a *real* benefit to your workflow or product (and not just an item of
>marketing hype), I see no reason to move away from a currently working
>toolset.
More information about the framers
mailing list