Just by looking at the recent PDF technology releases, this summer is shaping up to be a good one for PDF interaction and usability. Now while you still can’t curl up comfortably with a computer screen in bed, you can now get a bit more comfortable using those PDFs onscreen.

Just last week, the complete Adobe Digital Editions v.1.0 was released, pushing the electronic book experience further than its beta predecessor. Now if you need to write notes in the margins, dog ear a few pages or highlight passages as you would in a paperback, you can do so with an e-book as well. With Adobe Digital Editions v.1.0, you can add your own footnotes by adding a bookmark that also allows you to add a little note to the page you’re viewing. As well, there are options to adjust page views and to highlight specific text. This newest version can be opened from within the Adobe Reader, and comes with support for PDF, Flash SWF, and XHTML-based e-books, which ultimately means better text reflow and, by extension, a better viewing experience.

And while on the PDF-user-experience note, Adobe is further enhancing its forms generating software, LiveCycle ES. This ultimately means better user interaction with e-forms and businesses online. In collaboration with StreamServe, Adobe is integrating an updated version of their software, Persuasion, with LiveCycle ES software. The result: LiveCycle Production Print ES and LiveCycle Output ES.

When integrated with LiveCycle ES, LiveCycle Production Print ES enables organizations to automate the production, assembly and delivery of high volumes of “production-ready” formats, such as the PDF, that are used for data processing. LiveCycle Output ES, on the other hand works on a smaller scale for a smaller number of users. It can assemble document packages from a combination of existing files and new PDF documents.

Both are limited releases right now, but if you’re keeping an eye out for them, you can find Production Print ES available in the fall of this year and Output ES next month. More information is posted up on the Adobe website.

PDF usability—especially for onscreen reading and e-form data input, has always been one of the format’s weakest points. But with the direction in which these new releases are going, it won’t be for too long. So what does this add up to? A reason for which you might want to try and get a little bit closer to the PDF this summer.


Stay tuned!

A lot has happened with the PDF format in the last year—submission for standardization, release of a new specification, software upgrades, and improvements with graphic and dynamic PDFs. In this series posting, you get a look at the PDF’s recent format competition and past legal issues as well as the other uses of PDF related technology. Here it is.


Macromedia

Adobe Systems, Inc. acquired Macromedia Inc. in 2006 and has, since then, injected Macromedia technology into their software. However, Adobe and Macromedia had come into close, legal contact even before the acquisition—over patent disputes.

The patent dispute according to past articles in early 2000-2002, was over a tabbed palette interface element that was awarded to Adobe. The issue dated back to 1996, right up until 2000, during which time Adobe had confronted Macromedia about the palette’s inclusion in several of the company’s products. Yet, Macromedia’s argument against the suit, filed in August of 2000, was that the patent was invalid. This escalated to a point where Macromedia countersued against Adobe in September 2000 for infringing on three of Macromedia’s own patents. After two years of back and forth legal battles, Adobe won the lawsuit and was awarded 2.8 million.

And five years later, Macromedia is now one of Adobe’s acquisitions. . . .


Native PDFs

As you know, native PDFs are ones that are generated from electronically created documents. Yet, while these native PDFs are beneficial when it comes to conversion, they can also produce just as much legal hubbub as patent disputes can. Moving the ability to create PDF files, or PDF-like formats, directly into the authouring application was definitely a complex issue that became a major headliner in PDF news this year.

Back in February, I wrote three postings on factors that made creating digital documents and native PDFs a more significant matter than ever before. There were the legal issues between Adobe and Microsoft; the PDF specification submission to ISO; and then, there was OpenOffice.org, Microsoft’s word processing app rival whose applications sport ODF creation, a format that became a statewide standard in Massachusetts.

Creating native PDFs and PDF-like formats now involves more politics at the authouring application level. Microsoft has the convenience of a widely used platform, Adobe has the ubiquity as de facto standard, and OpenOffice has the state of Massachusetts. Creating a native PDF, or PDF-like format is now, in one sense, a matter of “moral” choice: are you an Acrobat advocate, a loyal MS Office user, or an open source supporter?


OCR

You know it by its three letter acronym, you know what it does when it comes to converting scanned PDFs. Yet, as a software that literally recognizes and translates digitally imaged characters into character codes (ASCII or Unicode), OCR isn’t just for converting scanned PDFs.

OCR has been used for a wide range of data processing systems. It’s been used by the Standard Oil Company of California for credit card imprints for billing purposes. At the Ohio Bell Telephone Company, OCR was used for reading bill stubs. Even the United States Air Force used OCR for reading and transmitting typewritten messages.

Another big use for OCR technology is postal office work. The first use of OCR in Europe was by the British General Post Office for automating the mail sorting process. OCR scanners read the routing barcodes marked upon the envelopes that are based on corresponding postal codes, resulting in faster organization and shipment times. In 1965, the United States Postal Services adopted the method, followed by Canada Post in 1971.

Today, OCR is being further enhanced as a data input method ranging from simple text to digital scanning processes to sophisticated ICR (Intelligent Character Recognition), a more advanced version of OCR that recognizes hand printed documents.


Whether the PDF world is buzzing with long standing issues from the past or just slowly unfolding with new developments, the PDF world, can be an interesting place, indeed.

Among the many annual conferences you could attend, Microsoft TechEd is a major one to catch if you want the greatest and the latest in tech world news . The conference, a tradeshow for all technologies shiny and new, made its North American stop in Orlando. And with a name like “TechEd”, it’s exactly what it sounds like—Tech Education, a chance to learn about technology in detail.

This year’s 2007 TechEd Conference from June 4th -8th gave Investintech a great chance to participate and expand the awareness of our products and showcase the abilities of our technology. The goal: to keep up with user needs and new developments. With over 13, 000 attendees composed largely of IT professionals and developers, it was an all round informative experience for both attendees and Investintech execs alike.

If you weren’t there yourselves, our executives, David, Keith and George, made their appearance as exhibitors where they got a good reception and managed to gauge the PDF user experience. As Investintech President and exhibitor David recalls, “In addition to our PDF-to-Excel, Word and other format extractions, attendees expressed a lot of interest in adding PDF conversion elements to their internal corporate processes and workflows.” Of course, there were also some concerns as attendees gave excellent feedback on conversion shortcomings and developing requirements.



As well, the conference proved to be great for interacting with the tech-savvy as well. As the conference is also known as a technical training conference, our lead developer, George, managed to attend several conference sessions and got the latest scoop on emerging technologies and platforms. Our executives also chanced to meet with the Microsoft team and discussed PDF, XPS and related matters – in the spirit of technology partnership.

And as TechEd organizers provided some very effective methods of promoting exhibiting partners (one of which included hosting a special exhibit area cocktail reception on Day One), our execs weren’t short of good, fun occasions in which to meet and speak with IT professionals and developers and share the strengths and benefits that our PDF conversion technology has to offer.

Reaching thousands of people on the exhibit floor, speaking one-on-one with attendees, and sharing our vision of PDF conversion technology, the event was definitely another positive and successful experience for Investintech.com.

If you go over to Virtual TechEd, you can catch a glimpse of the atmosphere, newsbits and information of the event itself.

Already the first full week in June and, no doubt, you feel like knocking off work and vacationing in sunny places. Yet, this could be a feeling even harder to overcome over at Adobe. This is because in the Adobe world this week, there are a few announcements that are popping up which seem to foreshadow work, not relaxation.


First off the list, Adobe has just released an Acrobat 8 Standard and Professional update that is now available on the site. From the Support Knowledgebase page, here’s a sampling of what features the Acrobat 8.1 update will sport: a new PDFMaker Ribbon UI in Office 2007, a Vista Preview Handler, direct rendering of dynamic forms, and support for MS Windows Vista.


In addition to the Standard and Professional 8.1 update, there’s also the Reader update. The latest tweaks? New Vista OS support, improved PDF form performance, support for 3D PDF functionalities, and a “Send to FedEx Kinko’s” command option. That’s right. By integrating the FedEx Kinko Print Online service, users can easily submit the viewed PDF document to Kinko’s in the US for an automated print production order.


Secondly, Adobe announced its latest version of Adobe LiveCycle ES (Enterprise Suite) that will be released in July. The suite will come in two editions, Business Transformation and Data Capture. LiveCycle ES works on the large-scale enterprise level that is now a unified and integrated system rather than a family of products like its predecessor. Once deployed, it connects external user applications and data capture with internal business document workflows. It is the latest in the PDF form enhancing software since it first shipped in 2004.


And to finish, a small related news bit to add to the above. According to an article on Network World, a free plug in tool, “Guide Builder” will also be released next month for the LiveCycle Designer Tool. Brian Wick, Adobe’s group product marketing manager, claims that it “will let developers working in PDF generate dynamic forms that could be used to build applications such as for online mortgages, insurance claims and other documents where users might need step-by-step prompts.” Thus, you can expect to see some changes in the future when you interact with organizations online.


You can be sure that whenever Adobe has got its hands full with new developments for the PDF, you PDF users out there will have yours full as well.

This month has been a busy one for Adobe. In addition to naming a new Senior VP and CIO, seeking to launch a new print driver for Vista, looking to close a deal on acquiring a hosted services company and supporting a student film program, Adobe was also in the middle of putting the finishing touches on their latest Acrobat release.

A Brief Teaser

The software has now gone 3D. Just this week, Adobe announced the official release of Acrobat 3D Version 8. Leveraging PDF technology, it can do everything the Professional version can. And from the looks of it, this newest addition is a huge step up in PDF technology.

Acrobat 3D Version 8 gives users the ability to create highly compressed 3D graphic files from large source files. The program can perform one-click conversions of 3D CAD formats into PDF and also export 3D image data to other widely used CAD formats. In addition to this interoperability, you can easily insert 3D designs into Microsoft Office documents for high quality print publishing material.

The application is being praised in reviews for taking PDF elements to another level. Along with 3D graphics, PDF creators can also include Product Manufacture Information, commenting features, and combine other file formats, such as spreadsheets and Word documents, directly within the PDF document. Enhanced viewing security measures, design manipulation and interactive design collaboration features are other buzz factors to check out.

Take the product tour of Acrobat 3D Version 8 and see it for yourself!

Retail Details

According to the Adobe website, Acrobat 3D Version 8 is selling for US$995 with the Acrobat 3D upgrade (to version 8 ) priced at US$295. If you already have a professional version of Acrobat, ugrades are US$545. And to make things even more fun, for those of you who purchased the software from Sept. 18 up until the 30th of May, you are eligible to receive your upgrade for free.

Adobe Reader 8.1 is expected to be released soon. It will have updated support for the PDF functionalities enabled by Acrobat 3D Version 8.