It’s been almost a month now since Adobe Acrobat X was officially released, so let’s take a look at what the reviews out there are saying…
In our earlier article on the differences between Acrobat X and earlier versions, we covered what PC Magazine wrote: the new software is “massively improved” and “faster and more powerful than ever,” with “finally a lucid, up-to-date interface” and “terrific corporate and automation features, including high-quality exports to Word and Excel documents.” Their review gives Acrobat X a rating of 4½ stars and concludes it is “the most powerful, flexible, and best-designed PDF software ever written,” and “a giant step forward, and an essential upgrade for anyone who creates or manages PDFs.” And About.com rates the product 5 stars.
How about the end-users out there – how is Acrobat X being received? Here’s a quick video:
These are some of the customer quotes:
“Acrobat X is going to be the most critical document tool we have across all of our business areas. We can clearly see how the new features and intuitive user interface will make our staff more efficient, and ultimately save our business and customers time and money.”
— Kevin Wedman, Vice President, Bureau Veritas
“The new Action Wizard in Acrobat X Pro is a terrific enhancement and a real time saver. It lets us automate the most common steps in our review process, and it does away with time-consuming steps.”
— Patrick Lennon, Print and Publishing Officer, Tourism Ireland
“Acrobat X offers a sleek user interface and tool panes that make the software extremely easy to use for anyone. Our employees don’t have to search through multiple menus to find what they want. The whole experience is much more intuitive compared to using other types of software.”
— Johnny Chloride, Solution Delivery Manager, HASSELL
“It’s so easy – it takes five minutes to sign a contract in Acrobat X, without having to print it, rescan it, save it, compress it, and then email it back. You just save it and hit email. It’s an amazing tool.”
— Mollie Rusher, President, On3 Solutions
“I love the way that you can just roll up documents and things into a Portfolio, put a little user interface on it, and send it off. And then when people open it – they can open it in Acrobat 9, they can open it obviously in 10 – they open it, and then they’re like, ‘wow, I didn’t know you could do that – how did you do that?’ Well, I just dragged and dropped it into Acrobat – it’s so easy, and it’s so much fun.”
— George Demmy, TerraGo Technologies
“Well I think Acrobat X and it’s video capability is probably the thing that I’ll walk away with the most. It’s amazing to think that a PDF document can deliver live media like that. It’s pretty impressive.”
— Donna Sandmark, Art Institute of California
“It’s pretty much the navigating features – how the document recognizes meta tags when you drag and drop different things in there, it automatically recognizes and then you can scroll through. That was pretty cool, that’s one thing that caught my eye. There’s a lot that I really didn’t know that it did that will make my job easier, and be an effective tool for the classroom.”
— Kanequa Chancellor, K-12 Education
“The ability to add documents, or add pages to a document – choose the files in the order you want, you select everything in the folder, attach it to the document, drag and drop, put it where you want, and it’s done! Very quick.”
— Dan Jones, Cornell Law School
“One of the customers we’re looking at, they do real estate appraisals. They have a whole package – they used to send around a whole pile of different files. Now with Portfolios, you have a single object, you’ve got all of the information about the house, you’ve got the picture, you’ve got all the details wrapped up in one nice little interface. And of course it’s a PDF – people know and love PDF.”
— Dave Venace, Senior Systems Analyst, Four Point Solutions
“I’m really looking forward to the multimedia features that are in there. We’re trying to create some tutorials, and I think Acrobat would be a good way to deliver that content. I’m really excited to start using Acrobat X.”
— Alex Varson, US Census Bureau
“The way it’s just so easy to pull down your Tools menu, and encrypt something easily, add passwords, easily share, add your video. It’s simple, it’s very intuitive – it’s just drag, drop, pop it all in. We’re excited about it, it should be really easy.”
— Jennifer Wicks, Cal State University
“Teachers can start creating interactive documents, where students can add research dynamically, add PDFs, add animations – where there’s this kind of interactive textbook/syllabus/ongoing course development. We’ll see live books, live curriculum, live syllabi that teachers use, and students become more of the collaborators and researchers in the classroom.”
— Laurie Burruss, Online Training Provider, Lynda.com
Read more in-depth reviews from CNET (“promises tighter security, better collaboration, and easier PDF reading”) … PC World (“makes portfolios, and even simpler documents, much easier to assemble and to share”) … The Washington Times (“the best way to work with PDF files that’s out there today”) … and eWeek (“empowers professionals to innovate and create higher-quality content, driving tighter collaboration and productivity across teams in today’s dynamic business environments”), plus more customer testimonials.
Acrobat X Pro and Standard will run well on 32-bit or 64-bit computers, and is designed for Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, or Mac OS (see full system requirements). It can be installed side-by-side with earlier Acrobat versions without difficulty or interference.
Want to try it out for free yourself? Just download a fully-working free trial and you can be up and running in minutes.
Of course, the Adobe Reader X for PDF is free as always.
[UPDATE (June 16th) – Acrobat X continues to win four-star ratings from customers – see more reviews in the comments below, or leave your own.]
Subject: Announcement: Acrobat X Customer Reviews
From: Lori DeFurio, Adobe Systems
Date: Thu, Jun 16, 2011 5:15 pm
Hello Acrobat X prerelease tester,
I would like to introduce you to Customer Reviews, a brand new section of our Acrobat pages at Adobe. There is now an opportunity to submit your feedback via a product review for:
* Acrobat X Standard,
* Acrobat X Pro, or
* Acrobat X Suite.
Your feedback about the product will help us continue to provide you with great features and innovations. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on Acrobat X and hope you’ll take the time to write a review. Just sign in using your Adobe ID and fill out the form.
(Please note: I recommend using Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome to access the review form. I’ve had difficulty using Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.)
Feel free to let me know if you have questions or comments.
Lori DeFurio
Acrobat Enablement & Social Media
Adobe Systems Incorporated
I totally agree with the review. This software is really useful and makes my work easier and faster. I bought my Acrobat X Pro.
Acrobat X Pro is a huge time saver. I bought a download version and it’s really worth the price.