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Filed under: Office, Adobe, Web

Acrobat.com goes pro

Acrobat.com premium
Adobe has taken the beta label off of its web-based Acrobat.com office suite. And while you can still create and share text documents and presentations for free, you'll need to upgrade to a paid account for up to $39/month or $390/year to unlock advanced features like the ability to create unlimited PDF files, share larger files, or host meetings with up to 20 people. Acrobat.com Premium users also get paid support.

If you don't sign up for a premium account, you'll be limited to creating 5 PDF files per month, web conferences will be limited to 3 users, and you'll be stuck with just 100 file downloads per month. There's also a cheaper plan for $14.99/month or $149/year that falls somewhere between the free and Premium Plus plans.

Adobe is also rolling out an experimental spreadsheet app called Tables as part of Acrobat.com Labs.

I can understand why Adobe would decide to create a subscription-based service in order to make some money off of their product. What I can't understand is why anyone looking for an office suite for personal use would choose to use Acrobat.com instead of alternatives like Zoho Docs, Google Docs, or even a desktop application like Microsoft Office, which might cost more up front, but which doesn't have ongoing subscription costs.

Then again, maybe the goal was never to market Acrobat.com to personal users. The key may be the web conferencing and support features, which could make Acrobat.com an attractive option for small businesses in need of collaboration tools.


[via CNET]

Filed under: Internet, Office, Adobe, Beta, Web

Adobe launches online presentations app (web based PowerPoint)

Acrobat Presentations
When Adobe launched its online office suite at Acrobat.com last year the site was a bit on the anemic side. Sure, it featured the slick Flash-based Buzzword word processor. But it lacked a good spreadsheet or presentations application. There's still no spreadsheet app in sight, but today Adobe added an attractive tool for viewing and editing presentations to Acrobat Labs.

Like Buzzword, Acrobat Presentations is built on Flash. It features the smooth and attractive animations you'd expect from a Flash-based application. But it's also fairly intuitive to use. At the top of the screen are a series of icons which expand into toolbars to give you access to the features you need at any given moment. The left side of the screen shows thumbnails for each slide, while the slide itself hangs out in the center for your viewing, creating, or editing pleasure. Or you can hit the Play Slideshow button in the bottom right corner if you just want to sit back and enjoy the show.

Because the application is built on Flash, the right-click button on your mouse is useless which MS Office addicts might find frustrating at first. But Acrobat Presentations does give you most of the tools you'd expect from a presentation application, plus online collaboration tools. You can share your presentations with other users and let them edit your files.

[via VentureBeat]

Filed under: Utilities, Web services, Adobe, web 2.0

Adobe launches Acrobat 9 and Acrobat.com online office suite


Adobe has built a suite of online office applications to compliment Buzzword, the company's online word processor. We've covered Buzzword in the past. It's pretty, fast, and not really all that much more useful than similar products from Google or Zoho. Here's a rundown of the other applications you'll find at Acrobat.com:
  • ConnectNow: A web conferenceing tool that lets you share your desktop with others, chat, talk over a VoIP connection, or share files and mark up whiteboards.
  • Share: Selectively share files with other users. Adobe Share lets you send files to a list of contacts, and lets the recipients view PDF image, and video files online.
  • Create PDF: Seriously, do we need to tell you what this does?
  • My Files: Store and organize up to 5GB of files online.
You'll notice that Acrobat.com doesn't have a complete office suite. There are no spreadsheet or presentation applications. But that 5GB of free storage space is pretty attractive.

Adobe has also released Acrobat 9, an updated version of its desktop PDF reader. The biggest change in Acrobat 9 is support for embedded Flash, which means you might start finding PDF documents with embedded YouTube videos or other Flash content.

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