Adobe Drives Next Generation of Electronic Documents with Acrobat 8 Software

PRESS RELEASE

Product Line Goes Beyond Simple PDF Creation and Frees Knowledge Workers to Communicate and Collaborate with Confidence

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Sept. 18, 2006 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today intro­duced Adobe® Acrobat® 8 soft­ware to pro­vide knowl­edge work­ers inno­v­a­tive tools for com­mu­ni­cat­ing and col­lab­o­rat­ing with con­fi­dence across the bound­aries of oper­at­ing sys­tems, appli­ca­tions and fire­walls. With Acrobat 8, busi­ness pro­fes­sion­als can now more effec­tive­ly engage with the rich, high-value infor­ma­tion in PDF doc­u­ments and forms, and more reli­ably and secure­ly dri­ve their work to com­ple­tion lever­ag­ing the ubiq­ui­tous, free Adobe Reader® software.

Building on the decade-plus her­itage of Adobe in the dig­i­tal doc­u­ments busi­ness, Acrobat 8 unveils a tru­ly com­pre­hen­sive set of capa­bil­i­ties for work­ing with PDF doc­u­ments with­in a sleek, mod­ern user expe­ri­ence. The stream­lined user inter­face enables first-time users and pro­fes­sion­als alike to explore the pow­er of Acrobat by eas­i­ly sur­fac­ing the most valu­able tasks. The abil­i­ty to start com­mon activ­i­ties – such as com­bin­ing, sign­ing and pro­tect­ing PDF files, inter­act­ing with PDF forms, review­ing and col­lab­o­rat­ing on doc­u­ments, or launch­ing a real-time web con­fer­ence – is now as sim­ple as a sin­gle click.

“Hundreds of mil­lions of users of Acrobat and Adobe Reader have estab­lished PDF as a trust­ed for­mat that enables doc­u­ments to flow between com­pa­nies and across the gap between dig­i­tal and print,” said Tom Hale, senior vice pres­i­dent, Knowledge Worker Business Unit, Adobe. “With Acrobat 8, Adobe is enabling knowl­edge work­ers to use next gen­er­a­tion elec­tron­ic doc­u­ments to eas­i­ly col­lab­o­rate with peo­ple, ideas and infor­ma­tion, regard­less of all-too-common oper­at­ing sys­tem or plat­form con­straints. With the addi­tion of Acrobat Connect, they can take col­lab­o­ra­tion a step fur­ther to instant­ly and eas­i­ly con­nect with each oth­er in real-time over the web.”

For the first time, all of the Acrobat 8 prod­ucts, as well as Adobe Reader 8, pro­vide one-button access to Adobe® Acrobat® Connectâ„¢1 soft­ware, an easy-to-use, host­ed soft­ware ser­vice that pro­vides imme­di­ate access to a per­son­al meet­ing room for real-time web con­fer­enc­ing (see sep­a­rate press release issued today). Along with Acrobat Connect, Acrobat 8 fur­ther extends the fam­i­ly beyond sim­ple PDF cre­ation and now enables users to choose the most appro­pri­ate means for engag­ing oth­ers, through elec­tron­ic doc­u­ments or in real-time over the web.

Professionals in a wide vari­ety of areas, such as archi­tec­ture, engi­neer­ing and con­struc­tion (AEC), finance, IT, legal, mar­ket­ing, man­u­fac­tur­ing, and pub­lish­ing can use the Acrobat prod­uct line to com­mu­ni­cate and col­lab­o­rate with­in the con­text of their work. Engineers can reli­ably share prod­uct designs up and down the sup­ply chain in 2D or 3D; busi­ness ana­lysts can eas­i­ly col­lect and more secure­ly route sen­si­tive finan­cial data; lawyers can cir­cu­late con­tracts for dig­i­tal sig­na­ture; archi­tects can enable clients and con­trac­tors to review and markup blue­prints and pro­pos­als; and cre­ative pro­fes­sion­als can effi­cient­ly pub­lish to print with the high­est fideli­ty and reli­a­bil­i­ty (see sep­a­rate press release issued today on Creative Suite® 2.3 software).

The Acrobat 8 prod­uct line intro­duces sev­er­al major inno­va­tions in the areas of doc­u­ment col­lab­o­ra­tion, PDF con­tent reuse, PDF forms, pack­ag­ing of mul­ti­ple doc­u­ments, and con­trol­ling sen­si­tive infor­ma­tion. For exam­ple, shared reviews put col­lab­o­ra­tion with­in the reach of vir­tu­al­ly any­one with access to a shared net­work fold­er and Adobe Reader2. A par­tic­i­pant in a shared review can see com­ments post­ed by oth­ers, track the sta­tus of the review, and work even when not con­nect­ed – reduc­ing dupli­cat­ed work and enabling large groups to col­lab­o­rate more effi­cient­ly. Acrobat 8 also enables PDF con­tent to be export­ed into pop­u­lar for­mats to enable reuse and repur­pos­ing of content.

With Acrobat 8, any busi­ness or indi­vid­ual knowl­edge work­er can take advan­tage of the pow­er of PDF forms. Form field recog­ni­tion auto­mates the process of cre­at­ing PDF forms from sta­t­ic PDF doc­u­ments, and wiz­ards help man­age the dis­tri­b­u­tion of forms and col­lec­tion of data. Users of Acrobat 8 Professional or Acrobat 3D Version 8 can enable any­one with the free Adobe Reader2 to dig­i­tal­ly sign and save PDF forms. Additionally, PDF pack­ages allow for group­ing dis­parate infor­ma­tion into what appears like a sin­gle doc­u­ment, but pre­serves indi­vid­ual files and secu­ri­ty set­tings for max­i­mum flex­i­bil­i­ty. Comprehensive capa­bil­i­ties help con­trol or per­ma­nent­ly redact sen­si­tive vis­i­ble and hid­den infor­ma­tion in PDF files.

The Acrobat fam­i­ly con­sists of Acrobat 8 Professional, Acrobat 8 Standard, Acrobat 8 Elements, Acrobat 3D Version 8, Acrobat Connect, and Acrobat Connect Professional.

Pricing and Availability
Acrobat 8 Professional for Microsoft® Windows® and Macintosh, and Acrobat 8 Standard for Windows, are expect­ed to be avail­able in November 2006 in English, French, German, and Japanese ver­sions. Acrobat 8 Professional is expect­ed to be avail­able for an esti­mat­ed street price of US$449, and reg­is­tered users of qual­i­fy­ing ear­li­er ver­sions of Acrobat3 can upgrade to Acrobat 8 Professional for an esti­mat­ed street price of US$159. Acrobat 8 Standard is expect­ed to be avail­able for an esti­mat­ed street price of US$299, and reg­is­tered users of qual­i­fy­ing ear­li­er ver­sions of Acrobat4 can upgrade to Acrobat 8 Standard for an esti­mat­ed street price of US$99.

More infor­ma­tion on the Acrobat 8 prod­uct line, includ­ing pric­ing and avail­abil­i­ty for Acrobat 3D Version 8 and Acrobat 8 Elements, is avail­able online at www​.adobe​.com/​a​c​robat/ . Customers in North America can also call 1–800-833‑6687.

About Adobe Systems Incorporated
Adobe rev­o­lu­tion­izes how the world engages with ideas and infor­ma­tion – any­time, any­where and through any medi­um. For more infor­ma­tion, vis­it www​.adobe​.com .