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Adobe's new, improved Acrobat XI starts at Rs. 19K

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Supriya Rai
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BANGALORE, INDIA: Adobe Systems launched the next-generation Acrobat suite, the XI, in Bangalore on Wednesday.

The most significant upgrade to the product suite that was Acrobat X comes in the form of PDF editing, which would enable users to create, modify and view text, images and even videos on PDF documents. On top of it, it is device-agnostic and is designed to be compatible with tablets and smartphones, on which you can literally touch to open a new document, edit it and even add your signature with your fingers.

The new suite inlcudes Acrobat XI Pro, Acrobat XI Standard and Adobe Reader XI, the last of which is free-to-download, upon product shipment (http://adobe.ly/QX5Rj4). The Standard version is available for Rs. 19,001, while Pro comes at Rs. 28,502.

Educational institutions, students, faculty and staff in K-12 are in for a discounted price for the package. For more details on this, visit http://adobe.ly/Wiu0V9.

Another striking feature of Acrobat XI is that it could be integrated seamlessly with Microsoft Office and SharePoint. For instance, you can save a PDF file in PowerPoint, Word or Excel format and reuse parts of or the whole of PDF documents as MS Office files and Web pages without retyping, and also reflow text in a paragraph without disturbing format.

Also, users can access remote files on the cloud and integrated them to their PDF document, by choosing from a folder.

At a live demonstration of its features and capabilities, Umang Bedi, managing director, South Asia, Adobe, quoted a recent Adobe India survey, stating that 68 per cent of the 950 knowledge workers they spoke to confirmed using smartphones or tablets to access documents and about 90 per cent vouched that they would increasingly use these devices to create, manage and review documents.

As for its security features, Bedi said, "If you activate Protected mode, you can't access other files on that native system." Even in file-sharing, documents can't be copies or edited without the creator's permission, he explained.

Highlighting the added features, Aniruddha Joshi, solutions architect, Enterprise Solutions, said that quick edit option of text and images would make the task in hand easier and simpler, as also the multiple-version saving option, which would increase productivity.

There, however, is a flip side to the product suite. It hasn't got a proper back-up option, unless one keeps saving the document every now and then. Currently, there is no autosave option to ensure data recovery, in case of a power failure or UPS break-down. But Bedi assured that they would get back to their engineering team on this and try to work on an update to rectify this.

He cited the example of the eGram project in Gujarat - basically, a government-to-citizen initiative which covers 18,695 villages in the state, to illustrate the efficiency of the tool, which is touted to improve productivity and reduce cost and time. "Some other states are also evincing interest in collaborating with us on similar projects, but at this point, I can't name them," informed Bedi.

Replying to a query on how small and medium enterprises might not take to the suite, owing to its pricing, especially when there are a host of free software available, he agreed and added that some additional features offered by them gives them the edge over what he preferred to call 'clones' in the market.

Acrobat XI and Reader XI will be available as a centrally-managed, touch-friendly app for iPads and Android-based tablets with new support for Microsoft App-V via Citrix XenApp.

The latest version of Acrobat XI is expected to ship in a span of 30 days and will be made available through Adobe Authorised Resellers and the Adobe India Online Store, shop.adobe.com/in. You can upgrade your Acrobat from earlier versions to XI by choosing a payment option.

©CIOL Bureau

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