Acrobat as a review tool -- lacking in at least one area?

["Campbell, Art" <artc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Our department recently switched over to Acrobat 4 as our distribution tool
for FM docs
under review. As part of our process, we encouraged reviewers to use the
annotation tools
to cut in their edits, given Acrobat's ability to compile the annotations.

Imagine our surprise to find out that you can't print an annotated .pdf file
so that the notes' text
is visible. The best you can do is to print the .pdf  so that the notes show
up as closed
icons. Which makes it very difficult to use the annotations in any area but
online. For instance,
it's impossible to print a document with annotations to take to a document
review meeting,
or for someone to shove into a briefcase, or for a writer to go through a
document cutting in edits
and marking them off as "done" on a hard copy. Or for a customer who
receives final form PDFs
to cut in and use their own "local" annotations in print.

This is, IMHO, either a serious bug in the design and implementation of this
version of Acrobat
or the result of some really brain-dead thinking somewhere down the line.
Acrobat phone support 
personnel were surprised that you couldn't do this; it took them an
interesting amount of time
and testing to verify that the product was unable to print the annotations
in place.

That said, the tool and procedure are working very nicely. Except for this
huge, glaring inability
for the company that invented PostScript to manage what's a relatively small
printing problem. 

Art

Art Campbell
Mgr., Technical Publications
Northchurch Communications,
a subsidiary of 
Newbridge Networks
Five Corporate Drive
Andover, MA 01810
978 691-6344 


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