If you’re interested in learning about the best web and interaction design techniques, there’s a free new 2½-hour course you’ll find worthwhile…

It’s the third installment in the excellent Classroom series, which features free expert training in well-designed sessions with high-quality production values. Previous classes have been an in-depth Dreamweaver CS5 tutorial and a terrific After Effects CS5 tutorial.

This latest presentation details how to design your interfaces in the most effective way with the behavior of the user in mind. Some of the topics include crafting effective navigational systems, creating a liquid layout, how to best deliver images and media, designing forms and dialogs to smoothly guide users through a positive user experience, and more. The best practices covered here will help you make better design decisions in your work going forward.

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[UPDATE – For a quick tutorial with CS6, see Ten Steps to Building a Website with Adobe Dreamweaver CS6 — or download the free new ebook, Dreamweaver CS6 Basics.]

For some months now, Adobe has had a great set of videos out (17+ hours) covering the highlights and new features of all products in Creative Suite 5… Now comes a terrific new course specifically on getting started from the ground up with Dreamweaver CS5. This 15-chapter step-by-step tutorial really covers all the basics and key topics – not just for Dreamweaver, but for developing websites in general.

So, it’s a helpful and complete background and introduction for getting started with HTML, CSS, Spry, JavaScript, XML, and rich media content such as Flash, video, and online maps. Some of the many fundamen­tal topics covered include images, fonts, layout, hyperlinking, navigation, menus, panels, templates, animation, testing, and uploading. But note that this class is not just for beginners – even experienced Dreamweaver users are learning some­thing new here… (see reviews below)

Basically, if you’re looking to get going with website design and development, this is a nice way to get your feet wet (or expand your existing knowledge) with the industry-standard product in just three hours for free – regardless of whether you keep using it. If you want or need a free copy of Dreamweaver CS5 to walk through during the training, you can just download the fully-functional 30-day free trial.

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We’ve previously featured over 17 hours of free video tutorials for Creative Suite 5, plus three hours for Lightroom 3 – so here’s a brand new set for the recently-released Adobe Acrobat X Pro & Standard… In the free courses below, product experts share how to get started, the basics of the software, overviews of major new features, how to use key tools and functions, plus their favorite tips and most useful techniques. In total, there are three courses with 3½ hours of free content, spanning over 57 separate chapters.

If you need a copy of Acrobat X Pro to get going, you can just download a free 30-day trial.

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[UPDATE (May 2020) – These links still work to download the old Acrobat X or Acrobat 9 trials. We also now have the all-new Acrobat DC 2020 Direct Download Links!]

Adobe Acrobat X has just been released! And continuing in our tradition of providing the direct download links for major Adobe products such as Creative Cloud, CS6, Captivate 11, and Elements 2020, below you’ll find the direct links for the brand new Acrobat X (10)… We also have added the direct links for the previous versions Acrobat 9 and Acrobat 8 as well, in case you also need them for any reason.

The links given below go to the authentic and secure files residing on Adobe’s servers, are guaranteed genuine and will not change. They are especially useful when you are unable to download Adobe’s software via other means – often due to difficulties with the Akamai Down­load Manager (the Adobe DLM). Here it’s open and you can just use your browser, or another download manager of your choice.

The links are listed below. For Windows, the Acrobat X Pro download is in the form of a single .exe file, and for Mac OS it’s a single .dmg file. There is no actual trial version of Acrobat X Standard available for any platform, but Pro includes all Standard features – so you can try out Pro for free and then decide which version you want at the time of purchase. Languages offered here are English, French/Français and German/Deutsch.

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[UPDATE (February 2013) – The commercial version of Project ROME will remain free for public download! (Windows and Mac OS)]

In all the excitement last week with the hundreds of free online sessions from the Adobe MAX conference, there was a brand new product debut that should get just as much press. Adobe launched a free preview of their new Project ROME content creation and publishing applica­tion for print, photo, presentations, animation, and web. And this is a pretty cool tool if you haven’t checked it out yet. The streamlined interface with plenty of templates helps you get started quickly, and the “all-in-one” nature allows you to easily borrow and repurpose content across projects or from the cloud.

The best way to get a sense of it is a quick one-minute demo:

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Yesterday at the big MAX conference, Adobe finally announced their Digital Publishing Suite – a new publishing solution that allows authors to deliver innovative digital reading experiences that attract readers and advertisers. This set of end-to-end, turnkey hosted services plus viewer technology build on the foundation of Creative Suite (including InDesign CS5) and allows publishers to use existing staff, skills, and workflows to design and deliver engaging, digital content direct to consumers, through content retailers or leading mobile marketplaces. You may have seen this already being used very successfully by magazines such as WIRED and The New Yorker.

The Digital Publishing Suite will be released in the second quarter of 2011, likely in conjunction with a CS5.5 point release update. In the meantime, Adobe Labs has made some tools available now for writers to get started and create, preview and share their content in the new format. The tools include the Digital Content Bundler and Interactive Overlay Creator, plus the Digital Publishing Plug-in for InDesign, which allows InDesign to interface with and transfer information to the Digital Content Bundler.

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[UPDATE (February 2012) – See how you can “create your own grace period” for any Adobe software purchase at any time!]

Adobe announced Acrobat X yesterday and it is open for preorder but not shipping yet… The company says the release date will be within 30 days, and in the meantime you can still buy Acrobat 9 (or download the Acrobat 9 Pro free trial) if you need something going today.

Historically, Adobe’s policy for major product releases has been that you may qualify for a free upgrade if you buy the previous version after the new product has been announced, but before it ships… The advantages are threefold: (1) you get software available for immediate download, (2) you get a more mature release if you prefer and can move up later at your leisure, and (3) you win a lower upgrade cost (e.g., from Acrobat 6, 7, 8), because you’re buying fewer steps to go up (to Acrobat 9 rather than to X).

The good news is this post-announce free upgrade policy remains in effect for Acrobat X, according to the chat session below with Adobe Customer Service. So it looks like you can get the best of both worlds and buy or upgrade to Acrobat 9 now, and then later get a free upgrade to Acrobat X when you—and it—are ready.

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[UPDATE (October 2019) – These still work to download the old Elements 9 trials. We also now have the new Elements 2020 Direct Download Links!]

Continuing our history of providing the direct download links for major Adobe products such as Creative Cloud, CS6, Lightroom 6/CC, and Acrobat DC, below you’ll find the direct links for the brand new releases of Photoshop Elements 9 and Premiere Elements 9. And for the first time ever, Adobe is offering both products for both Windows and the Mac.

The links given below go to the authentic and secure files residing on Adobe’s servers, are guaranteed genuine and will not change. They are especially useful when you are unable to download Adobe’s free trials via other means – often due to difficulties with the Akamai Download Manager (the Adobe DLM). With the links provided below, you can use your browser’s down­load capability, or another download manager of your choice.

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There’s a fantastic new resource available for After Effects users – a free three-hour in-depth tutorial on After Effects CS5. This introductory course covers a broad range of topics: learning the basics of compositing and animation, how to use keyframes as well as spatial and temporal interpolation, using parenting to group animated elements together, how to use masks and layers, introduction to effects, importing Photoshop documents into AE, syncing transitions to music, creating a master composition, how to render out your finished video to a standalone file, and more. The program is hands-on and includes downloadable sample files to follow along with for creating a motion graphic title sequence.

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With the surprise news out from Apple that removes all previous restrictions on the development tools that can be used to create iOS apps, the doors open for standalone Flash-built apps to finally be migrated to the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. Adobe at first released a simple statement, “We are encouraged to see Apple lifting its restrictions on its licensing terms, giving developers the freedom to choose what tools they use to develop applications for Apple devices.”

Later, Adobe issued a more complete response that confirms these apps are already being accepted into the App Store:

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