Adobe Acrobat for Creative & Business – Which version should I get?

At some point we all run into a pdf file whether it is a website attachment, a form from our doctors office or a creative file.  To open and view a pdf at some point you had to download Adobe Acrobat Reader.  This is the free download from Adobe that allows you to read a pdf file. The free version has some features you can print, crop and probably make some notes in the document. 

In addition to the free Acrobat Reader version you can purchase a full working version of Adobe Acrobat.  For just a couple hundred dollars you can get a lot of features, including the ability to make your own pdf files because you can’t create a pdf with the free version. 

There are now two different types of paid versions.  Acrobat Standard is best used for a single user, and Acrobat Pro is best used for working in a group. You can test drive with a free trial and purchasing is roughly $100 difference in price.

Some features for each:

	Acrobat Reader (FREE)	Acrobat Standard	Acrobat Pro
Read PDF Files	x	x	x
Create PDF Files		x	x
Convert PDF to other formats		X (Word, Excel, HTML)	X (Word, Excel, HTML, Power Point)
Edit PDFs		x	X
Merge files into PDF		X (merge pdf files)	X (merge pdf & other formats)
Create PDF& web forms	x	x	X
Review PDF documents	x	x	X (allows file sharing)
Sign electronic PDF	x	x	X
Protect PDF files		x	X

Whether you get standard or pro one huge win to me is actually making a pdf because you can create a secure file.  That means you can password protect the document which will not allow anyone else to change it.  Keeping the integrity of your file, and all pdfs can be created to a fairly compact size that is easy to email.

This series is going to discuss some of the great features available in Adobe Acrobat that might really benefit your business workflow.  I have used several features like OCR and creating forms that I will share, and I will explore some features I haven’t tried and share that with you.  Should be fun!

Adobe Acrobat 8.0 Standard Windows