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 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
• Adobe Acrobat 9
• 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.

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.

Product history

Acrobat 1.0 for Macintosh was originally released 15 June 1993, later for DOS and Windows 3.1. This was not available in single copies and was not initially free. 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).

Acrobat 2.0 for Windows and Macintosh was first released September 1994. It is now available free of charge:

• PDF version 1.1 (and prior) supported.
• Acrobat Exchange 2.0, package as 1.0.
• Acrobat Professional 2.0, which included the contents of Acrobat Exchange, plus Distiller.
• There were 2.1 updates.
• Acrobat Catalog was introduced, using Verity, Inc. technology to create searchable indexes to PDF files. Searching required a special version of Acrobat Reader or Acrobat Exchange.