
 |
|
May 24, 2013
May 22, 2013
John Thorne:
They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman
May 20, 2013
Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star
The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
May 13, 2013
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
|
| |
Jewish World Review
Sept. 22, 2006
/ 29 Elul, 5766
Adobe's smart new Acrobat
By
Mark Kellner
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
It's axiomatic as has been noted here before that Washington, D.C.,
is a city that largely runs on the use of forms. And, as noted before,
it's my belief that Adobe System's Acrobat Professional software is one of
the most important tools a form creator or user can have in their
arsenal.
Such a belief is only enhanced with the arrival of Acrobat Professional 8,
announced Sept. 17 by the firm, carrying the same $449 retail of previous
versions, with a $159 price for upgrades from existing version 7 users. If
you want to skip the rest of the review, here's my advice: run, don't
walk, to your phone and order a copy. When it ships in a few weeks, you'll
be very, very glad you did.
The Acrobat portable document format, or PDF, is one of the more
important, if unheralded, benefits of the computer revolution. A PDF file
can be created on a PC running Microsoft Windows, commented on by a
Macintosh user, and read by someone with a Linux-based PC, and vice-versa
or any combination thereof. The PDF is a pretty "universal" document
exchange format that offers added security on demand: you can set things
so that no one at all can change or modify a PDF document, something
less reliably done in Microsoft Windows and practically unable to be done
with some other programs.
This new Acrobat release, of which I reviewed a Beta copy of the Windows
version, does things with documents that many of us will stand up and
cheer over. For example, it will take a raft of Microsoft file types
Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations and let
you merge them into a single PDF document or into a virtual package where
each document is its own "unit." Either way, preparing reports, briefing
books and the like just became a lot easier. Under the "package" method,
digital signatures on each document, as well as that document's security
settings, can be preserved.
Speaking of security, the ability to "redact" documents is enhanced in
this new version as well, which will not only mark out text sections
better than in previous versions, but also, if needed, include the
appropriate Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, codes, which would allow
the reader to understand why a passage has been so designated. Those whose
job it is to release sensitive files will likely value such a feature.
Those who share documents for commenting will have some powerful features
to work with as well, including a way to make a group review more easily
accomplished. Those who get a document to review, using either Acrobat
Professional 8 or the Acrobat 8 reader a free program due for release
along with the pro version will be able to add their comments, while
noting who else has seen the document and has commented. That way, only
one person will question the spelling of a word, instead of 15 folks.
Another high spot of this program has two benefits: the Acrobat
Professional program will scan a PDF document for possible "form fields"
that can be filled in. Ideally, this should work without flaw; in real
life, I found a roughly 75 percent success rate on an eight-page form I
downloaded from an Internet site.
That's not perfect, but creating only a few form fields manually is a lot
better, in my opinion, than having to do all of them. Overall, this is a
nice feature to have.
Beyond nice, though, you can then use Acrobat Professional to collect the
form data, aggregate it into a "comma separated value" list and then let
you export the data to a spreadsheet or database program such as FileMaker
Pro. How useful something like this can be to a small business or
organization is not difficult to imagine.
More details on the software will be found, I'm sure, at
http://www.adobe.com, or by asking anyone in your office whose smile is
exceptionally wide these days.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Mark Kellner has reported on technology for industry newspapers and magazines since 1983, and has been the computer columnist for The Washington Times since 1991.Comment by clicking here.
Archives
© 2006, News World Communications, Inc. Reprinted with permission of The Washington Times. Visit the paper at http://www.washingtontimes.com
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman

Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|