The Introduction of Adobe Acrobat 9 document creation software could do for PDF's what the Jazz Singer did for movies. For the first time, PDF's can "talk" via embedded flash video and shockwave animation. In turn users of Version 9 of the nearly ubiquitous and free Acrobat Reader will able to watch movies, play interactive games, and run applications baked into PDF's without opening a third party media player.

Among the many new, dynamic features to justify a business purchase of Acrobat 9 include dynamic maps, enchanced 256-bit encryption, and improved forms. on topof it all, Adobe offers an online community at Acrobat.com that facilities online collaboration so users can store documents and literally work on the same page at the same time.



Acrobat 9 requires at least a 1.3GHZ processor running windows vista or XP with service pack 2, with 256MB of RAM, screen resolution of 1,024*768, and 2.13GB of free hard- drive space at minimum. Adobe requires 512MB of RAM for Pro Extended and recommends video hardware acceleration.

Setup and Interface;
Installing Acrobat 9 Pro Extended took about 20mins on our windows XP test computer. In our experience, uninstalling older versions of Acrobat took longer that adding the new applicaction. the process was relatively smooth and unintrusive, although we did wind up with an Acrobat 9 icon on our desktop. during installation, Adobe offer the choice of opting into or rejecting its Product Improvement Program, which will send the company anonymous information about how you use the software. although the company pledges anonymity, we were nevertheless glad that it presented the option not to participate upfront.

This release of Acrobat makes PDF's more dynamic and packs in more new features that prior releases did. although PDF's have been interactive for some time, such as with Version 8's support for web-based for mes, Acrobat 9 takes the print ready document format into the so- called Web 2.0 era