I only just noticed this, so I’m not sure how long it has been public – you can now download Adobe Reader version 8 (for Windows and Mac, anyway… Linux is still at 7.0.8, it seems).
It’s quite nice. It seems nippy. The user interface has had quite a facelift, with floating buttons along the left hand side of the screen that pop out dialogs for comments or sidebars for page selection as appropriate, causing the main view to dynamically resize itself when needed. It is very clean, clear, and (on my system) fast. The one thing I definitely don’t like is that if you open the full search, it now opens a separate window alongside the main Reader window.
Of course, one of the first things I have to do when installing a new application is to check out the options or preferences. Reader 8 has a lot of them, including a bunch of options around identity and “online services” that want my email address. I haven’t looked at these too closely yet, and will probably avoid them.
One of the particularly interesting features appears to be the Adobe Connect integration – there’s a button on the toolbar (highlighted in the screenshot above) which should enable you to “Start a meeting and share documents”. I haven’t tried this yet – it seems like something you have to subscribe to, although a free trial is available. We have similar functionality in some of our internal applications at work, I’ll be interested to see how this compares with what I am used to.
Footnote – looks like it has been out nearly a month.
Seems Adobe is taking the baton from Microsoft in trying to take over the world with software! – There is also a giant project to put the Adobe and Microsoft logos on the floor of the shallowest parts of the Pacific Ocean so one can see them from space. I often just read pdf’s so I use Apple’s Preview that is part of the OS. It launches without the 90 seconds of advertising that Acrobat (and Reader) must put upon you in order to distract you from the fact they are rubbing antennae with headquarters not too unlike ants at a picnic. Evil evil evil! I have been using Adobe products in the printing industry since the beginning and just recently used a Harlequin RIP for the first time. Imagine that with non Adobe RIP’s one can use the screen font as a vector path to create a printer font rather than buying it from Adobe! – Will wonders never cease. I hate that these companies attitudes are slowly turning doing honest business into seeing what they can get away with. This is not the right way kids!
It would be nice if the PDF technology was embedded in the OS, but let’s face it: not going to happen. I know there are adware-free solutions for viewing PDFs on both Linux and Windows, too – I just find it easier to go with the default. Maybe I shouldn’t…