Document Management | News

Acrobat X Pro Gains E-Portfolio Wizard, SharePoint Integration

• By David Nagel
• 10/18/10

Adobe has introduced Acrobat X Pro, the latest version of the company's document creation, portfolio, and collaboration tool for Mac OS X and Windows.

Acrobat Pro is a commercial tool for creating, managing, and manipulating PDF documents in collaborative workflows. It's also designed for assembling multimedia elements into electronic portfolios, including video, audio, graphics, documents in any format, and various forms of interactive media.

The new release, Acrobat X (pronounced "10"), has added a number of collaborative tools, electronic portfolio features, and productivity enhancements; it's also gained integration with Microsoft SharePoint.

For e-portfolio creation, Acrobat X Pro has added a new PDF Portfolio Wizard, which is designed to assist users in assembling materials using a simple, guided interface and pre-defined templates. It also adds new color palettes, layouts, and themes.

In the category of productivity, Acrobat X Pro adds an Action Wizard to help automate repetitive tasks. Macros created through the wizard can also be shared with other users.

Other features in Acrobat X Pro include:

• Check-in and check-out of PDF files using SharePoint;
• Intelligent field identification for converting scanned documents into fillable forms, along with improved optical character recognition, automatic color detection, and improved compression of scanned documents;
• Support for creating PDFs from within Microsoft Office applications with a single click;
• The addition of a Commenting tool pane with a searchable list of comments;
• A new "Reading Mode" for optimized viewing;
• Improved support for managing ISO standards conformance; and
• Updated user interface elements, including a custom pane for displaying the most commonly accessed tools.

Adobe has also introduced Reader X, an update to the company's free PDF reader. The latest version gains several new features and collaborative capabilities, including commenting support with highlighter and sticky note tools. It also adds mobile support for Android, Blackberry Tablet OS, and Windows Phone 7 systems. And it gains new security features via Protected Mode, enabling "sandboxing," or a method of confining PDF reading operations to a small environment, restricting the kinds of actions that can take place and following defined policies for handling actions beyond what would normally be allowed within the "sandbox." (Further detailed information on Protected Mode can be found here.)

Adobe said Acrobat X Pro and Reader X will be available within 30 days; Acrobat X Pro preorders are available now. Student and teacher editions run $119; volume licensing starts at $159. Acrobat X Pro supports Mac OS X (10.5.8 or later) and Windows (XP or later). Further information can be found here.