by Charles Lott
We’re all familiar with Adobe’s Acrobat Reader. Most of us have either downloaded it as a freebie from the World Wide Web, or else we’ve come to know it through its inclusion with various applications which use its portable document format (PDF) for their online documentation. On the other hand, not quite so many of us are familiar with the complete Acrobat package, although it is readily available at software dealers across the country.
The latest version of the complete Acrobat package, Acrobat 4.0, has a number of very nice features for creating and distributing PDF documents. Best of all, it appears to be quite compatible with Window-Eyes (GW-Micro). I have not tested it with JFW (Henter-Joyce) because I have not had time to create a script for it; thus, I don’t know how well that reader and Acrobat would get along. Both of the above-mentioned screen readers will handle PDF documents in the Acrobat Reader, provided, of course, that the user has downloaded and installed the Acrobat Access plug-in, which is downloadable from Adobe’s web site (access.adobe.com) as Accs4.exe. The Access plug-in converts PDF documents on-screen to ASCII text, which most good screen readers can readily handle.
Incidentally, it would be very useful indeed if Adobe would include the Access plug-in on its Acrobat CD. That way complete compatibility would be right there in one convenient spot, thus eliminating the need to download the plug-in.
Acrobat 4.0 not only creates PDF files from other documents, including graphic images, but it also provides utilities for making bookmarks, thumbnail sketches and annotations of text documents. With Acrobat you can also edit or touch up PDF documents with tools from the provided tools palette. Window-Eyes will navigate through the bookmarks of documents containing them with either its cursor keys or the mouse. As a matter of fact, Window-Eyes 3.1 includes set files for Acrobat, which were created in August 1999. There is, however, one regrettable drawback. While the items on the tools palette can readily be labeled in Window-Eyes, the tools are not compatible with screen readers because they cannot be used in Access (ASCII) mode. As we have already seen, PDF documents cannot be read by a screen reader without converting them to ASCII text. Thus many of the functions of Acrobat will not be possible for the totally blind. Hopefully, someone will find a way of getting a screen reader to read native PDF files. If that can ever be done, Acrobat will become even more useful to blind users. Partially sighted users will find most of the Acrobat editing tools quite usable.
Another useful feature of the Acrobat system is its interface with Microsoft Office 95, 97 and 2000. Microsoft Word and PowerPoint in all three versions of the suite provide menu items which allow you to create PDF documents from within these applications. Documents from other applications can be converted to PDF either by dragging them to the Acrobat Distiller and dropping them there or by opening them from within Acrobat. In addition, Acrobat comes with support for a number of foreign languages, including Asian and Near-Eastern languages.
Users will find getting started reasonably simple, because Adobe has included ample online documentation in PDF format. The documentation includes the Getting Started Guide, the User Guide and the Adobe Acrobat Tour, a movie which presents an overview of the application. All in all I would consider Acrobat 4.0 to be a highly worthwhile addition to your software collection, especially if you work within a system where a lot of document sharing goes on and portability is the watchword. For further information about Acrobat 4.0, call Adobe toll-free at (800) 272-3623, or contact your nearest software reseller.