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Acrobat: Is It Changing Publishing as We Know It?
Adobe Acrobat is more than just another software program. It didn't arrive with the instant impact of its ancestor, Adobe's PostScript, but it bids fair to make equally important changes in publishing as we know it.
For user groups and other non-profit or educational organization, Adobe AcrobatTM is a tool that has special implications, not to mention benefits.
How can I claim that Acrobat may be more important than PostScript, you ask? Didn't PostScript help create a revolution in publishing back in the mid-1980s? Certainly! PostScript, combined with PageMaker from Aldus and the Apple LaserWriter printer created what John Warner of Aldus named "desktop publishing." Then Ventura Publisher came along and extended the new technology to PCs.
We're in a new era, however, with the Internet and World Wide Web, plus hardware and software more capable than anything we dreamt of 15 years ago. And Adobe Acrobat, especially the current 4.0X versions, fits right into this new era. It's a unique publishing tool, more versatile than anything we've known in the past. Consider these points.
1. You can use Acrobat to publish a document from virtually any application in a Portable Document Format (PDF) file.
2. Acrobat is a true cross-platform application; its PDF files can be created and read on both PC and Mac computers.
3. PDF files preserve the fonts, formatting, colors and graphics of the original source document, regardless of the application and platform used to create it.
4. Conversion of document files to PDF can be a simple drag-and-drop operation, but there are sever other ways Acrobat can create PDF files, especially from within Window Office applications such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint. The default installation in Windows includes macros that allow quick, easy creation of PDF files
5. You don't have to be a publishing genius or understand how the program works to use it effectively for such chores as converting a PageMaker newsletter or Word document to PDF for distribution via e-mail. You do have to spend more time to learn the more sophisticated features that Acrobat also offers:
6. Acrobat captures Web pages or entire sites and converts them to PDF files for convenient offline viewing and printing.
And that's just for starters. For more detailed information than I could possibly include here, including FAQs, User Forums and tutorials, go to www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/main.html.
What I'd like to stress here is the important role Adobe Acrobat can play in the distribution of information by user groups and other educational or not-for-profit organization that publish newsletters and journals.
For at least four years I've been arguing that distributing hardcopy newsletters via the U.S. Postal Service may not be the best choice for user groups. It's expensive, vying with meeting place rental as the major item in most groups' budgets. It's slow, especially if newsletters go out as third class mail. It also places major restrictions on editors.
I know, I know! Members resist receiving their newsletters via e-mail.
"I want to get the news printed on paper so I can sit and enjoy it with a cup of coffee. I don't want to read it on a computer monitor!" Those are the comments I hear all too frequently.
But think about it for a minute. The newsletter you get via snail mail is printed in plain black and while, right? And it usually contains eight or 12 pages; more must be added in multiples of at least two pages, usually four.
Downloading a typical PDF newsletter takes only a few minutes, printing it just a few minutes more. And how many user group members don't have a color printer these days? Not many, so editors can add color to their pages, something too expensive even to consider for printed newsletters.
(Continued on page 9)
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