Adobe Acrobat is a family of computer programs developed by Adobe Systems, designed to view, create, manipulate and manage files in Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF). Some software in the family, particularly the creating software, is commercial, and some is freeware. Adobe Reader (formerly Acrobat Reader) is available as a no-charge download from Adobe's web site, and allows the viewing and printing of PDF files. Acrobat and Reader are widely used as a way to present information with a fixed layout similar to a paper publication.
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Adobe Acrobat is a family of computer programs developed by Adobe Systems, designed to view, create, manipulate and manage files in Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF). Some software in the family, particularly the creating software, is commercial, and some is freeware. Adobe Reader (formerly Acrobat Reader) is available as a no-charge download from Adobe's web site, and allows the viewing and printing of PDF files. Acrobat and Reader are widely used as a way to present information with a fixed layout similar to a paper publication.
History
Since the early 1990s, the Acrobat product had several competitors who each used their own document formats, such as:
- AnyView from Binar Graphics
- Common Ground from No Hands Software
- Envoy from WordPerfect Corporation
- Folio from NextPage
- Microsoft Reader from Microsoft
- Replica from Farallon Computing
- WorldView from Interleaf
By the late 1990s PDF had become the de facto standard, and the others had become largely historical footnotes. This in turn has led to many more competitors for Adobe Acrobat, providing both free and commercial programs that create or manipulate PDF, such as Ghostscript, Foxit, and Nitro PDF. Adobe also allows Acrobat plug-ins to be developed by third parties, which can add extra functions within the Acrobat program.
Product names
Adobe has changed the names of the products in the Acrobat family regularly, also splitting-up, joining, or discontinuing products. Between version 3 and 5, Standard and Professional versions were one product simply called Adobe Acrobat.
- Adobe Reader 9 (Windows & Mac only; latest for Unix is 9.1)
- Adobe Acrobat 9 (Windows & Mac only; no Unix version)
- Adobe Acrobat 9 Standard
- Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro
- Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended (includes Adobe Presenter)
- A growing collection of free web services launched via the Acrobat.com service such as Adobe Buzzword, Connect Now, Create PDF, and Share.
None of the products in Acrobat family has adopted the two-letter CS3 icons, although rendered similarly.
Adobe has never created a product called either Adobe Writer or Acrobat Writer, although they used to include a printer driver called PDFWriter, which is unrelated.
1.0
Acrobat 1.0 was originally released 15 June 1993 for Macintosh, later for DOS and Windows 3.1. This was not available in single copies and was not initially free, with Acrobat Reader originally priced at $50 per user. After a while the IRS purchased a right to distribute Reader 1.0, effectively making it seem free to those who obtained it that way:
- PDF version 1.0 supported.
- Acrobat Exchange 1.0 (included PDFWriter printer driver and Acrobat Exchange application).
- Acrobat Distiller 1.0. Created a PDF from PostScript (no printer driver at this stage).
