Re: Acrobat 6 Professional

[Dov Isaacs <isaacs@xxxxxxxxx>]

Actually, both Acrobat 6 and Adobe Reader 6 do a better job in
displaying lines and images than any of the predecessors do.

In terms of images, you no longer need the turn on the "interpolation option"
for images to get reasonable rendering of low resolution images (such as 
screen shots) when you view PDF files. The PDF files that already have
that option enabled still look good albeit a tad "fuzzy" but those
without look pretty good also without the "fuzziness" caused by the
interpolation option.

For FrameMaker users, Acrobat 6 and PDF 1.5 do offer some advantages.
These are primarily in the areas of images and image compression.
PDF 1.5 has a JPEG 2000 image compression option which gives better
compression than old-style JPEG without the artifacts. There is also
an option for PDF file compression that yields file size results that
obviates any remaining reason to ZIP or StuffIt compress PDF files
for any space savings. (Prior to PDF 1.5, a ZIP compression of a
PDF file would typically save about 20 to 25%. That savings no
longer exists. Compression is built-in.) However, until more widely
accepted (i.e., more users with Adobe Reader 6) on their desktop,
you probably won't want to create PDF 1.5 for distribution.

Other benefits of Acrobat 6 are (1) its better transparency flattening
(not a benefit for FrameMaker users -- FrameMaker doesn't support of
generate transparency) and (2) improved color management. In the
second case, I contend that you no longer really need to worry about
the RGB versus CMYK thing if you properly setup color management and
printing from Acrobat 6.

In terms of whether to use "Standard" or "Professional", for existing
Acrobat users, this is a "no-brainer!" The "Professional" version is
the successor to Acrobat 5 with some additional features. A number
of features of Acrobat 5 are NOT in Acrobat 6 Standard.

        - Dov


At 5/29/2003 06:52 AM, Thomas Michanek wrote:
>> For our company's customer documentation, I currently produce the original
>> work in FM6 before generating PDFs for digital/offset printing and screen
>> viewing. I enable hyperlinking and bookmarking within the same document and
>> want more clarity in my screen captures, photos, and drawings than was
>> provided by v5.05.
>
>Disclaimer: I haven't seen Acrobat 6 or checked what's new in it.
>Despite this, I would be very surprised if there has been any changes
>to the internal distilling features or capabilities when it comes to
>"clarity" in graphics. You are probably referring to resolution and/or
>smoothness of images in the resulting PDF, either on-screen or in
>printed output. Those properties are handled by the Distiller job
>options, which has to be set properly for your intended output.
>It can also matter what formats your original images are in FM, and
>what resolution (DPI) you imported them with (for bitmap images).
>
>Not knowing more about your files, your PDF creation process, and
>what knowledge you have about image formats/resolution/compression,
>it's hard to give specific advice. However, I feel that most problems
>concerning "clarity" of images in PDF can be resolved by using proper
>distiller settings and an understanding of the limitations and
>characteristics of image resolution and compression. The online
>Acrobat help does provide a pretyy good explanation of this.
>
>To put it another way: what problems do you have today, exactly?
>What image formats do you use, what import resolution, what distiller
>settings, and how do you create your PDF from FM?
>
>
>- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>Thomas Michanek, FrameMaker/UNIX/MIF expert


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