Adobe Adds Interactivity to Acrobat.(Adobe Acrobat 5.0)(Product Announcement)

Adobe Systems' PDF (portable document format) is the de facto standard for sharing graphics and text files via email attachments or over the Web. Most users are familiar with Acrobat Reader, the freeware tool that is available just about everywhere and that allows for the viewing of PDF files. But the full version of Adobe Acrobat also includes modules that enable users to create the PDF files in the first place--even from documents containing large graphics files--and mark them up with redlining, "Post-it"-type notes, and a variety of other annotation tools.

Version 5.0 is the most recent version of Adobe Acrobat. These days, the company makes a point of referring to itself as a "network publishing" developer rather than the "desktop publishing" company of yore. Major updates to Acrobat reflect this mindset, with an emphasis on document sharing features created for Adobe's target market of "business, IT, and graphic arts professionals" (in other words, just about ...