Date: 18 Mar 96 07:00:28 EST From: Tony Jeffree <100271.522@compuserve.com> To: 802-1 ACQUIRING/USING ADOBE ACROBAT ----------------------------- 1. ACROBAT READER ------------------ The Acrobat Reader software allows PDF files to be viewed on-screen and printed on your printer (need not be a postscript printer). To aid navigation within the 802.1p document, I have added two hypertext indexes to the PDF, one based on page thumbnails, the other based on bookmarks for the first 3 levels of subsection. Experiment with these by selecting VIEW/BOOKMARKS AND PAGE or VIEW/THUMBNAILS AND PAGE. The Reader is available for free distribution for a number of platforms, including: Win 3.1/Win 95 DOS MAC Sun Sparc HP Silicon Graphics AIX The reader can be downloaded from the Adobe web site [see corrections below]: http://w1000.mv.us.adobe.com/Acrobat/freeread.html or from the Adobe anonymous FTP site: ftp.adobe.com directory: pub/adobe/acrobat (subdirectories per-platform) or via Adobe's CD Rom sampler (which contains free reader versions for Win, Mac, SunOS, Solaris, HP-UX, Silicon Graphics IRIX and DOS, plus various demo 3PDF documents). Call (in USA) 1-800-272-3623 and order part numbe3r 0397-1492 at a cost of $9.95 to cover shipping & handling. [Correction: 19 Mar 96 04:17:22 EST It would appear that Adobe has restructured its Web site in the last couple of days, so the address of the page for reader software download has changed from the one I advertised in my last message. Their Home Page is to be found at: www.adobe.com Click the "Acrobat" button to get to the reader download page.] I will also ask Kipp whether he can put the readers up on the 802.1 server - will let you know if/when this happens. 2. ACROBAT EXCHANGE ------------------- This costs around 130 bucks for the Mac or Win versions (don't know about Unix) from your local software store - for example, PC Mall in the US, on 1-800-555-6255. In addition to allowing you to read/print PDF documents, Exchange allows: - Generation of PDF files direct from apps (via a PDF "printer driver"; - Generation of bookmarks, hypertext links etc. in PDF documents; - Annotation/editing of PDF documents. Using exchange, it would, for example, be possible to attach ballot comments directly to the PDF version of a document & return the annotated document as a ballot response. Worth thinking about if initial experiments with this format work out OK. 3. ACROBAT PRO -------------- This costs around 440 bucks for the Mac or Win versions (don't know about Unix) from your local software store - for example, PC Mall in the US, on 1-800-555-6255. Acrobat Pro adds "Distiller" and "Catalog" to Exchange, giving it the ability to convert postscript files to PDF files, and to generate free text indexes to multiple PDF files. Distiller handled without complaint the PS version of 802.1p/D2 that so many of you had problems printing - in fact, the PDF version of D2 was generated from those postscript files. Could be useful if (like me) you need to be able to print postscript files, but do not have easy access to a postscript printer, or regularly experience problems printing "foreign" postscript. Happy reading... Regards, Tony