Acrobat 9 - a disaster

[Dov Isaacs]

Hi Troy,

You have indeed identified a very good and valid reason to want to test your PDF files under Reader as opposed to the full Adobe Acrobat product. Similar issues are use of sophisticated Javascript and forms capabilities in PDF files.

However, I still believe and insist that if you try to test with Reader on the same physical and logical system on which you have created your PDF, you are seriously compromising your testing. Why?

(1)          If you have both Reader and Acrobat installed in parallel, only one of these two "owns" the .PDF extension for purposes of double-clicking in places such as Windows Explorer, browsers, and e-mail clients and it is not easy to do a switcherooni to cause one or the other of Reader or Acrobat to "own" the PDF extension. Except for the browser, the last installed "wins." Too easy to find yourself in the "wrong" client due to this.

(2)          The typical authoring system is much better endowed in terms of hardware and software resources than the typical client system (yes, I know that many technical writers end up with ancient, engineering hand-me-downs, but you'd be surprised how good those are compared to the typical enterprise client system which is often running on ancient hardware and much older software versions. Such clients are often running on memory and disk constrained systems with limited network access, only the system fonts installed (those provided with the OS), old e-mail clients versions, old browser versions, and ancient versions of Adobe Reader (7 or earlier).

As such, you really should be running your PDF file testing in a "sandbox" with limited resources. This sandbox could take the form of old hand-me-down systems with the barest software configuration installed or perhaps even a virtualized system using VMWare or similar products. The latter solution doesn't simulate limited hardware resources, but it would allow you to have virtual limited software setups for a number of old versions of Reader and for that matter, other less-capable PDF "readers" from third parties that your documents' receivers may be using. And if you are really serious about this, you might also setup a not-quite-up-to-date Macintosh and test what happens when your PDF files are opened up with the MacOS Preview program (often not a very pretty site).

                - Dov

From: Troy Fey [mailto:troy.fey at opinicus.com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2010 9:25 AM
To: Dov Isaacs
Cc: dr_gonzo at pobox.com; Framers E-mail List
Subject: Re: Acrobat 9 - a disaster

Dov -- I save all your responses.  Thanks for your continued support.  I believe I have a justification for why one would have an installation of Adobe Reader co-existing with an installation of Adobe Acrobat.

We've had to use Adobe Reader to verify the digital signature and mark-up capabilities were properly enabled by Adobe Acrobat.  We've had several round-trip exercises with SMEs and our Tech Writer where these capabilities weren't properly enabled in the PDF.   Mistakes happen, but because our Tech Writer didn't have a separate installation of Adobe Reader he failed to verify they were enabled before sending them out for review/signature and that lead to a lot of SME frustration.   Please excuse my ignorance if this is already common knowledge, but it seemed to be relevant for this thread.  Is there a way to emulate the limited capabilities of Adobe Reader within Acrobat?

-- Troy

Dov Isaacs wrote:

Steve,



Read the original thread. I am not going to repeat everything (and

it was quite a lot) that was discussed on this forum a few weeks ago,

especially related to engineering and testing discipline as far as

how PDF files are viewed and processed under what circumstances.



But NO, there is nothing WRITTEN about this from Adobe. On the other

hand, you should trust what I am telling you based on my 21 years at

Adobe and my working with Acrobat and Reader since Release 1 of same

as well as having to debug workflows and PDF files during all that time.



Quite frankly, the only time I had problems with anyone viewing a PDF

file that I produced on Acrobat-only systems (no Reader co-installed)

were with users who insisted on using St. Steve the Infallible's MacOS

Preview program's subset PDF viewing capabilities (or lack thereof).



The fact that Adobe doesn't prohibit you from parallel installation of

Acrobat and Reader doesn't mean that such installations are recommended

or really useful.



       - Dov