This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2011)

Adobe Acrobat is a family of application software developed by Adobe Systems to view, create, manipulate, print and manage files in Portable Document Format (PDF).^[4] All members of the family, except Adobe Reader (formerly Acrobat Reader), are proprietary commercial software, while the latter is available as freeware and can be downloaded from Adobe's web site. Adobe Reader enables users to view and print PDF files but has negligible PDF creation capabilities.^[5] Acrobat and Reader are widely used as a way to present information with a fixed layout similar to a paper publication.

History[link]

Since the early 1990s, the Acrobat product has had several competitors, some of which used their own document formats, such as:

• AnyView from Binar Graphics
• Common Ground from No Hands Software
• Envoy from WordPerfect Corporation
• Folio from NextPage
• Replica from Farallon Computing
• WorldView from Interleaf
• DjVu from AT&T Laboratories/DjVu Project/LizardTech/Varolmak/Caminova

By the late 1990s PDF had become the de facto standard, and the others had become largely historical footnotes. This in turn has led to many more competitors for Adobe Acrobat, providing both free and commercial programs that create or manipulate PDF. Adobe also allows Acrobat plug-ins to be developed by third parties, which can add extra functions within the Acrobat program.

Product names[link]

Adobe has changed the names of the products in the Acrobat family regularly, also splitting-up, joining, or discontinuing products. Initially, the name "Acrobat" was used as the parent name to a suite of products which included Acrobat Reader, Acrobat Exchange and Acrobat Distiller. Over time Acrobat Reader became Adobe Reader; and, Acrobat Exchange was simplified to Acrobat. Between version 3 and 5, Standard and Professional versions were one product simply called Adobe Acrobat.

As of December 2010^[update], the current main members of the Adobe Acrobat family are:^[6]

• Adobe Reader X (10.1.2)
• Adobe Acrobat X (10.0.0)
  • Adobe Acrobat X Standard
  • Adobe Acrobat X Pro
  • Adobe Acrobat X Suite
• Acrobat.com

The computer icon for PDF files

Unlike most other Adobe products, such as members of Adobe Creative Suite, members of Adobe Acrobat family do not have icons that display two letters on a colored rectangular shape.

Product history[link]

Version 1.0[link]

Acrobat 1.0 was originally released on 15 June 1993 for Macintosh. It was released later for DOS and Windows 3.1. This was not available in single copies and was not initially free, with Acrobat Reader originally priced at $50 per user.^[7] After a while, the Internal Revenue Service of the United States purchased a right to distribute Reader 1.0, effectively making it seem free to those who obtained it that way.

Adobe Acrobat 1.0 included:

• Support for PDF version 1.0
• Acrobat Exchange 1.0 (included PDFWriter printer driver and Acrobat Exchange application)^{[clarification needed What is Adobe Exchange?]}
• Acrobat Distiller 1.0, a software application that creates a PDF file from a PostScript source

Version 2.0[link]

Acrobat 2.0 was first released in September 1994 for Windows and Macintosh. It included:

• Support for PDF version 1.1
• Acrobat Exchange 2.0^{[clarification needed What is Adobe Exchange?]}
• Acrobat Catalog, which creates searchable indexes for PDF files. Searching required a special version of Acrobat Reader or Acrobat Exchange.

Acrobat Professional 2.0 was also released, which included Acrobat Exchange plus Distiller.
Adobe also released the first Acrobat Plug-ins SDK; allowing third party developers to create plug-ins for the Acrobat Exchange application.

Version 3.0[link]

Acrobat 3.0 was released in November 1996. It was the first release to support Windows 95, and the last to support Windows 3.1. It was also the first version to display PDF files inside web browsers, and the first to support form-filling. Later, an update to version 3.02 introduced extended forms capabilities and JavaScript. Adobe Acrobat 3.0 included:

• Support for PDF version 1.2
• A free Reader that allows searching (It was not part of the default download)
• Acrobat Catalog
• A Distiller printer driver.

Version 4.0[link]

Acrobat 4.0 was released in April 1999. It included:

• Support for PDF version 1.3
• Support for Public key infrastructure (PKI) and digital signatures via plug-ins

Adobe also released Distiller Server 4.0, a version of Distiller for Windows, Linux and Solaris that is licensed to multiple users, as well as Acrobat Business Tools 4.0, a limited version of Acrobat.

Version 5.0[link]

Acrobat 5.0 was released in May 2001. It included support for PDF version 1.4 and was the last version to support Windows 95. Acrobat 5.0.5 was the first to be able to run native in Mac OS X, but also ran in Mac OS 9.

This version did not include PDFWriter in Macintosh release.^[8]

Acrobat Reader 5.1, the subsequent version of Acrobat reader supported the Adobe LiveCycle Reader Extensions for forms saving

Adobe also released Distiller Server 5.0 and Acrobat Approval 5.0, a limited version of Acrobat mainly sold to people who wanted to digitally sign PDF files or save fill-in forms.

Version 6.0[link]

Acrobat 6.0 was released in July 2003. This version introduced significant changes to the family of Adobe Acrobat:

• Adobe Acrobat Standard 6.0 was released. It is a limited version of Acrobat Professional that includes Distiller but lacks Adobe Catalog, form design features and pre-press support.
• Adobe Acrobat Elements 6.0 was introduced. It enabled PDF creation but was aimed at the corporate market and was only volume-licensed for a minimum of 1000 licenses. It was available for Microsoft Windows only.
• Acrobat Elements Server 6.0, a server software version of Acrobat Elements, was introduced.
• Adobe Acrobat Reader was renamed Adobe Reader.
• Distiller printer driver was renamed Adobe PDF.
• PDFWriter was discontinued. PDFWriter was a printer driver used to create PDF files. It was discontinued in favor of the Adobe PDF printer driver to Distiller.
• A new version of Adobe Catalog was included, which was not compatible with earlier products for searching.
• Support for many operating system was dropped. Mac OS 9 was no longer supported. No version of Adobe Acrobat for Linux or Unix was released. Adobe Acrobat Standard did not support Windows 95 and Windows 98, although it supported Windows 98 SE. Adobe Acrobat Professional ceased to support Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows Me.

This version included:

• Support for PDF version 1.5
• Support for PKI (without a plug-in) via Microsoft CryptoAPI
• Support "Reader enabling", allowing Adobe Reader to save, sign or annotate PDF files if the PDF file allowed

Version 6 of the application was criticized for its performance. Adobe Acrobat 6 is slow to load and use. The Acrobat 6 plug-ins for web browsers was also criticized for suffering from low performance and potentially rendering one's web browser non-responsive.^[9]

Version 7.0[link]

Adobe Acrobat 7.0 was released in January 2005:^[10] It was the first version to include a mandatory product activation. It included:

• Support for PDF version 1.6
• Support for Adobe Policy Server rights management
• Support for embed 3D object information from the .u3d Universal 3D format

The Adobe Acrobat 7 family saw multiple changes. Adobe Acrobat 7 Professional for Windows now included Adobe LiveCycle Designer 7.0. Adobe Elements 7.0 was also released which was still only sold through volume licensing outlet but dropped the minimum licenses limit to 100 licenses. Finally, another edition of Adobe Acrobat, Acrobat 3D, was added to the family.

Adobe Acrobat 3D included all of the functionality of Acrobat Professional 7.0 as well as updated support for embedded 3D computer graphics, tools for capturing 3D content from OpenGL applications, and the Adobe Acrobat 3D Toolkit for converting CAD documents to PDF objects. Also included is a version of the capture tool for installation on Unix.

Acrobat 7 further dropped support for Windows 98 Second Edition and Windows Me. However, Adobe released editions of Adobe Reader for Linux, Solaris (SPARC only), HP-UX and IBM AIX.

Version 8.0[link]

Adobe Acrobat 8.0 was released in November 2006:^[11] It included:

• Support for PDF version 1.7
• Acrobat 8 Elements, which was withdrawn before its expected release in mid-2007.^[12] But it is bundled with RoboHelp 7 as a Distiller prompting that the product had been finished.
• Acrobat Connect (formerly Macromedia Breeze), a support application and an online personal meeting rooms to collaborate in real time for up to 15 participants

A later update 8.1 on June 2007 was released in order to support Microsoft Office 2007, Windows Vista, and 64-bit Windows operating systems.^[13] Also in September 2007, Adobe Reader 8.1.1 released for Linux and Solaris (SPARC) users.

Adobe Acrobat 8 family saw a handful of changes. Acrobat 3D was now able to produce embedded PRC file format, a highly compressed format for geometry and graphics which requires Reader 8.1 to display. It also supported Product Manufacturing Information and many different CAD formats.

Acrobat Connect Professional (formerly Macromedia Breeze) was also added to the family. It allowed scalable interactive web conferencing and multiple personal meeting rooms for everyone across an enterprise.

The Mac OS X version of Adobe Acrobat Pro saw a significant improvement: Adobe Acrobat for Macintosh was made a Universal binary that ran on both PPC and Intel architectures.

8.x product support ended in November 2011.^[14]

Version 9.0[link]

Adobe Acrobat 9.0 was released in July 2008:^[15][16] It included:

• Support for PDF version 1.7
• Support for Adobe extensions to PDF 1.7
• The ability to create Acrobat forms was in Acrobat Standard, which was previously only available Acrobat Professional 6, 7 and 8
• Support for real-time collaboration on PDF files with synchronized document views and chat
• Improved Web Capture for capturing entire web pages or just some parts into PDF
• Integration with Acrobat.com to enable storage and sharing of PDF files
• Support for comparing and highlighting the differences between two versions of a PDF document
• Support for playback of Flash Video or H.264 video in Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader
• Support for conversion of a variety of^{[weasel words]} video formats to Flash Video for playback inside PDF
• Support for creating PDF maps by importing geospatial files that retain metadata and coordinates
• Support for Optical character recognition (OCR) on PDF files using ClearScan. Adobe ClearScan technology creates and embeds custom Type1-CID fonts to match the visual appearance of a scanned document after optical character recognition. ClearScan uses these newly created custom fonts instead of system fonts or Type1-MM.

Adobe Acrobat 9 family includes a new member: Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended for Microsoft Windows. This product includes Adobe Presenter as well as the features of Acrobat 3D.

Adobe Reader 9 drops support for Adobe Reader Extensions 5 and 6 which permit Adobe Reader client software to save changes to filled-in forms in PDFs. Adobe Reader Extensions 6.1 and newer are still supported. Legacy PDFs will still be viewable, however they will open with the following warning:

Adobe Acrobat 9 family also dropped the multiple document interface. Previous versions of Adobe Acrobat opened multiple PDF files in the same window. Acrobat 9 however, only supports the single document interface scheme, wherein each PDF file is opened in an instance of Adobe Acrobat.^[18]

Version 10.0[link]

Adobe Acrobat X (version 10.0) was released on November 15, 2010.^[19][20] It included sandboxing protection for Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. Support was dropped for Windows 2000 and Power PC based Apple Macintosh computers.

Adobe Reader X is available for Windows, Mac OS, Android, and iOS.^{[21][22][23][24]} Support for Linux is not planned.^[25]

Internationalization and localization[link]

Language availability[link]

Adobe Acrobat is available in the following languages: Arabic, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian. Arabic, Hebrew versions available from WinSoft International,^[26] Adobe Systems' internationalization and localization partner.

Specific features for Arabic and Hebrew languages[link]

The Arabic and Hebrew versions are specifically developed for these specific languages, which are normally written right-to-left. These versions come with special TouchUp properties to handle digits, ligatures option and paragraph direction in right-to-left Middle Eastern scripts such as Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian, as well as standard left-to-right Indian scripts such as Devanagari and Gujarati. The Web Capture feature can convert single web pages or entire web sites into PDF files, while preserving the content's original text encoding. Acrobat can also copy Arabic and Hebrew text to the system clipboard in its original encoding; if the target application also supports the text encoding, then the text will appear in the correct script.

Security[link]

The latest security bulletins from Adobe are published on their Security bulletins and advisories page^[27]

From Version 3.02 onwards, Acrobat Reader (now Adobe Reader) has included support for JavaScript. This functionality allows the document creator to include code which executes when the document is read. While JavaScript is designed without direct access to the file system to make it "safe", vulnerabilities have been reported for abuses such as distributing malicious code through Acrobat.^[28] McAfee predicts that Adobe software, especially Reader and Flash, will be the primary target for attacks in 2010.^[29] Adobe applications had already become the most popular client-software targets for attackers during the last quarter of 2009.^[30]

September 2006 warning[link]

On September 13, 2006, David Kierznowski provided sample PDF files illustrating these vulnerabilities. Since at least version 6, JavaScript can be disabled using the preferences menu and embedded URLs that are launched are intercepted by a security warning dialog box to either allow or block the website from launching.^[31]

February 2009 warning[link]

On February 19, 2009, Adobe released a Security Bulletin announcing Javascript vulnerabilities. US-CERT recommended users change two default preferences in the program:^[32]

• Disable JavaScript in Adobe Reader and Acrobat. Acrobat JavaScript can be disabled in the General preferences dialog (Edit, Preferences, JavaScript, and un-check "Enable Acrobat JavaScript").
• Disable the displaying of PDF documents in the web browser. This can be disabled in the General preferences dialog (Edit, Preferences, Internet, and un-check "Display PDF in browser").

For users of Internet Explorer, US-CERT recommended changing an additional default behavior:^[32]

• Prevent Internet Explorer from automatically opening PDF documents (by editing a registry key in Microsoft Windows).

January 2010 Google/China incident[link]

It was reported ^[33] on January 14, 2010 that an analyst identified a vulnerability in Internet Explorer as a tool used to spy on companies and individuals.

"...independent research conducted by security firm McAfee, which has found evidence that a vulnerability in Internet Explorer—but not Acrobat Reader—was exploited in the attack. iDefense later retracted its claim about PDFs, but stands behind the rest of its report."

Operating systems[link]

This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. No cleanup reason has been specified. Please help improve this section if you can; the talk page may contain suggestions. (March 2011)

• Symbian: Adobe Reader LE v2.5 developed by QuickOffice lets the user view PDF (Adobe Portable Document Format) files on S60 3rd Edition mobile devices.^[34]
• The name "Adobe Reader LE" is also used for officially-supported versions of the reader on other mobile platforms.^[35]

See also[link]

• List of PDF software

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official Adobe Acrobat website
• Official Adobe Reader website

v t e Adobe Systems Software suites Creative Suite eLearning Suite Technical Communication Suite Desktop software (Full list) Acrobat Audition Digital Editions Director FreeHand GoLive PageMaker Photoshop Lightroom Flash Player Shockwave Player Media Player Adobe Reader Server software Adobe LiveCycle Adobe Flash Media Server BlazeDS ColdFusion Macromedia JRun Technology Adobe Flash Adobe Flex Adobe Font Folio Adobe AIR Digital Negative (DNG) Macromedia Authorware Macromedia FlashPaper Portable Document Format (PDF) PostScript Web services Adobe Solutions Network Adobe Photoshop Express Adobe Premiere Express Board of directors Bruce Chizen Charles Geschke Shantanu Narayen John Warnock Del Yocam Acquisitions Mergers and acquisitions Aldus Macromedia Scene7 Omniture Category  Commons