Comments on: Acrobat 9 for InDesigners: PDF Portfolios

By: Anne-Marie Concepcion

Anne-Marie Concepcion — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 13:28:11 +0000

Jose, there’s nothing special you need to do for cross-platform stuff. Probably the PC users don’t have Reader 9 installed. (Only Reader/Acro v9 can see portfolios.) Reader 8 and Reader 7 show one PDF with attachments.

By: Jose Calderon

Jose Calderon — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 20:45:03 +0000

I have an Acrobat portfolio BUT when I sent it to people using a PC they cannot see the Acrobat portfolio format. They only see the files. WHY?

Am I supposed to format the portfolio in a different manner for PC viewing?

Please advise …

THANK YOU

By: Carlos Lund

Carlos Lund — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 09:43:34 +0000

Thank you very much Scott!!! Now Reader is finally running, but I also had to delete the Adobe folder from the (/Library/Application Support) directory

By: Scott

Scott — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 19:36:59 +0000

Finally got it to run.

For anyone who may be running into this problem and searching for a solution: Reader v9 can have problems with the data stored in your Application Support folder and won’t launch. If you are getting the less than helpful “internal error” after installing and trying to run Reader v9 for the first time, you must delete this data. Delete the contents of Library (the one in your users folder)/Application Support/Adobe/Acrobat/ and you’ll be good to go.

By: Scott

Scott — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 03:48:32 +0000

v8.1.2 works without a hitch. As does the Acrobat.com that v9 installs. Luckily the v9 installer doesn’t mess with the v8.1.2 installation, so it’s easy to go back.

Someone else with exactly the same problem:
http://gusmueller.com/blog/archives/2008/07/adobe_reader_9_is_out!.html

Weird.

By: Steve Werner

Steve Werner — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 23:39:16 +0000

Strange, Scott. I can’t explain that. Does Acrobat/Reader 8 work on your system?

By: Scott

Scott — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 21:59:14 +0000

Anyone get Reader v9 (no, I don’t have Acrobat) to actually install and run on a Mac?

I’m running OS v10.4.11 on a PPC mac. I downloaded the proper version, but every time I try to launch it, it immediately crashes with an “internal error.” Same for any web browser that attempts to use the accompanying plug-in to view PDFs. Had to manually remove v9 and it’s plug-in to get v8’s plug-in to work again.

Tried downloading it a couple of times, rebuilding permissions, etc. No joy.

By: Roland

Roland — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 08:19:48 +0000

Steve, most folks I know don’t use Mac, won’t invest in the latest MS Office (I’ve gotten several to switch to OpenOffice) and won’t touch Vista with a 10-foot stick. And while my experience doesn’t equal market research, it’s well known that both the Mac and Vista don’t have big enough market shares yet.

The way PDF Portfolios work now, I’d rather convert everything to PDF using InDesign and send one ‘plain’ PDF over to folks. At least that way everyone can open it all and get the information I want to get across without having to tell them where to get what software to get it to work.

Sure, as a means for packaging multiple file types it’s nice, but sending a regular ZIP file is easier. The interface (at least in Acrobat 9 Pro) isn’t user-friendly and dummy-proof enough with the three small buttons for the views and double-click to open in a new window (or separate program that you might don’t have).

The biggest mistakes people make are 1) over-estimating people’s intelligence and 2) expecting others to own the software they have. Adobe fell for both.

By: Steve Werner

Steve Werner — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:51:26 +0000

For what it’s used for, combining disparate files and putting them into a presentation, what’s the competition? How would you do it?

I didn’t have time to include this in the original write-up, but you can preview Word docs, PSD files if you have the right OS. You can see Office files and PSD files in Leopard because it uses the QuickLook technology. You can see Office files if you have Windows Vista, or if you have the latest version of Windows Office. If you have Mac OS X Tiger or Windows XP you’re out of luck.

This is a big advance over PDF Packages (in Acrobat 8).

By: Roland

Roland — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:42:41 +0000

I checked out the Portfolio thing, and I have to say it’s pretty useless unless you combine a bunch of Acrobat-readable files (Word docs, PSDs, etc. won’t show in Acrobat, TIFFs don’t get previews 90% of the time), and even then it apparently needs to open the ‘embedded’ files (such as PDFs) in new windows, making a mess of things.

Maybe once Acrobat hits its 10th version it’ll be improved upon, but the way it works now it’s simply a gimmick.

Checking for PDF changes is cool though. That feature just saved me 20 minutes when a customer sent me a file and insisted it was new.