Creating text

Adobe Acrobat was the first software to support Adobe Systems' Portable Document Format (PDF). It is a family of software, some commercial and some free of charge. Adobe Reader (formerly called 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 a major components of the Adobe Engagement Platform, and are widely used as a way to present information with a fixed layout similar to a paper publication.

Several other PDF-editing programs allow some minimal editing and adding of features to documents, and come with other modules including a printer driver to create PDF files.

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, both free and commercial.

Today, there are a host of third-party programs that create or manipulate PDF, such as Ghostscript and Nitro PDF. Adobe also allows Acrobat plug-ins to be developed by third parties, which can add extra functions within the Acrobat program.

Adobe has changed the names of the products in the Acrobat family regularly, also splitting products up, joining them together, or discontinuing members. This causes much confusion, not only about what product to obtain, but even about what product people have.

As of 2006, the current main members of the Adobe Acrobat family are

Adobe Reader 8 (previously Adobe Acrobat Reader); no-charge software to read or print PDF files.
Adobe Acrobat Standard 8 and Adobe Acrobat Professional 8; commercial (paid for) software to create PDFs and to manipulate them in various ways. Between version 3 and 5 these were one product simply called Adobe Acrobat.
A growing collection of server and specialist products

Adobe Reader 7 running on DebianAdobe has never created a product called either Adobe Writer or Acrobat Writer, although these names seem a natural opposite to the Reader product. To add more confusion, Acrobat used to include a printer driver called PDFWriter.

Acrobat Reader 1.0 for Macintosh, 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 PDF from PostScript (no printer driver at this stage).

Acrobat Reader 2.0 for Windows and Macintosh. Now free.
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, not free, or Acrobat Exchange.

Acrobat Reader 3.0. The first to display PDF files in-browser, and the first to support form filling.
PDF version 1.2 (and prior) supported.
A free Reader to allow searching was made available, but was not part of the default download.
Acrobat 3.0 – replaced Acrobat Professional 2.1. Included Acrobat Catalog, and a Distiller printer driver.
Updates to 3.01 and 3.02; 3.02 introduced extended forms capabilities and JavaScript.
First release with support for Windows 95 and later. Last release with support for Windows 3.1.

Uses ~12MB of disk space when installed (according to Windows XP's Add/Remove programs).
Acrobat Reader 5.0.
PDF version 1.4 (and prior) supported.
Acrobat 5.0. PDFWriter removed from Macintosh application[1]
Updates to 5.0.5. Acrobat 5.0.5 was the first to be able to run native in Mac OS X, but also ran in Mac OS 9.
Distiller Server 5.0.
Acrobat Approval 5.0 – a limited version of Acrobat, mainly sold to people who wanted to digitally sign or save fill in forms.
Acrobat Reader 5.1 – supported the Adobe LiveCycle Reader Extensions (e.g. forms saving) (which was then under a different name).

Acrobat Reader 4.0.
PDF version 1.3 (and prior) supported.
Acrobat 4.0.
Updates to 4.05.
Introduced Distiller Server 4.0, identical to the regular Distiller but with a multi-user license (Windows, Linux, Solaris).
Acrobat Business Tools 4.0 – a limited version of Acrobat.

Adobe Reader 6.0 (no Linux or Unix versions)
PDF version 1.5 (and prior) supported.
Acrobat Professional 6.0 – replacement for Acrobat 5.0, with new features. Distiller printer driver renamed Adobe PDF. PDFWriter now gone for good. New version of Catalog integrated and not compatible with earlier products for searching.
Acrobat Standard 6.0 – limited version of Acrobat Professional, including Distiller but lacking features including Catalog, form design, prepress support.
Updates to 6.0.1, 6.0.2, 6.0.3, 6.0.4, 6.0.5 and 6.0.6
Dropped support for Windows 95 and Windows 98 First Edition. Acrobat Professional was Windows NT, 2000, XP only. Dropped support for Mac OS 9 and earlier. First release for Mac OS X.
Distiller Server 6.0.
Acrobat Elements 6.0 – PDF creation only, aimed at the corporate market (minimum 1000 licenses, Windows only)
Acrobat Elements Server 6.0 – client/server version of Acrobat Elements
Technology for "Reader enabling", allowing Reader to save, sign or annotate PDF files if the licensee had enabled the files.

Adobe Announces Acrobat 7.0 Software Availability
Adobe Reader 7.0
Updates to 7.0.1, 7.0.2, 7.0.3, 7.0.5, 7.0.7, 7.0.8 and 7.0.9.
PDF version 1.6 (and prior) supported.
Acrobat Professional 7.0 – now includes Adobe LiveCycle Designer 7.0 (Windows only) for XML form design (different and incompatible with previous form support) – Ability to embed 3D object information from the .u3d Universal 3D format. First version to include controversial mandatory product activation.
Acrobat Standard 7.0
Acrobat Elements 7.0 (now minimum 100 licenses)
Acrobat 3D (Windows only) – includes all of the functionality of Acrobat Professional 7.0 as well as updated support for embedded 3D, tools for capturing 3D content from OpenGL applications, and the Adobe Acrobat 3D Toolkit for converting CAD documents to PDF objects. Also included is a version of the capture tool for installation on Unix.
Windows 2000, XP, Mac OS X only for Acrobat. Although Linux, Solaris (SPARC only), HP-UX and AIX versions of Adobe Reader have been released.
Other LiveCycle products include LiveCycle Barcoded Forms, LiveCycle Document Security, LiveCycle Reader Extensions (previously Document Server for Reader Extensions and other names), LiveCycle Forms (previously Form Server), LiveCycle Form Manager, LiveCycle Policy Server and LiveCycle Workflow. Some of these are server solutions intended for large businesses. Only LiveCycle Designer is bundled with Acrobat Professional.

Uses ~150MB when installed (according to Windows XP's Add/Remove programs).
Adobe Announces Acrobat 8.0 Software
Adobe Reader 8.0
PDF version 1.7 (and prior) supported.
Acrobat 8 Elements (available mid-2007)
Acrobat 8 Standard (Windows only; Macintosh version not produced)
Acrobat 8 Professional
Acrobat 3D Version 8 (available early 2007)
Acrobat Connect (new in Acrobat family, formerly Macromedia Breeze) – online personal meeting rooms to collaborate in real time for up to 15 participants.
Acrobat Connect Professional (new in Acrobat family, formerly Macromedia Breeze) – Scalable, interactive web conferencing and multiple personal meeting rooms for everyone across an enterprise.
Mac OS X versions are Universal binary and only run on Mac OS X 10.4.

Nitro PDF is commercial software for creating and editing portable document format (PDF) files. The product is intended for the professional market and runs on Windows PCs. The base software features include creating PDFs from over 200 file types; viewing, searching and printing PDFs; drag and drop PDF creation; convert PDFs to Microsoft Word; combining into one PDF; reviewing documents with text notes, stamps, drawings, and markup tools; fill, save and submit PDF forms; edit and insert text, images, and objects; perform advanced image editing and document assembly; design PDF forms; generate bookmarks, hyperlinks, and Bates numbering. The software contains a system printer driver for 'Printing To PDF'.

The software supports the current Adobe Acrobat open PDF specification.

Several Adobe Acrobat plugins are also available which include PDF Aerialist (file conversion, merging and splitting and the creation and editing of PDF layers) and PDF Crackerjack (printing industry extensions for impositions, images, conversion to spot color and the printing of accurate color separations).

Nitro PDF and the plug-ins are available for download on time-limited trial from the Nitro PDF website.


History
April 2005 – Nitro PDF Desktop launched in beta release at Acrobat & PDF Conference in Orlando, Florida
May 2005 – At conclusion of the beta program Nitro PDF goes on sale
July 2005 – PDF industry veteran and The Adobe Acrobat Bible author Ted Padova writes the Nitro PDF User Guide, included with Nitro PDF in print and electronic versions.
August 2005 – Nitro PDF Desktop changes name to Nitro PDF Professional;
Early 2006 – Nitro surpasses 100,000 product downloads.
Mid 2006 – Version 4.91 addition of new features that include batch processing and advanced technology drawn directly from a number of ARTS plug-ins

Creating text fields

The most common field type on PDF forms is the text field. Text fields permit respondents to add alpha text and/or numeric values. You can format text fields in a number of different ways to insure fields are completed properly. You can add custom format scripts, validate data, assign actions, and perform calculations on text fields.

To create a text field:

1. Select the Text Field tool from the Nitro PDF Professional toolbar.
2. Drag open a rectangle where you want the Text field to appear.
3. Name the field and assign appearance settings.
4. Select Options. Click Alignment and select from drop down menu items text alignment for left, center, or right.
5. Add text in the Default Text box if you want text to appear as a default for the field. Something like a zip code or country might be used where most of your respondents are likely to come from the area you add for the default text.
6. Check Multiple Line if you want the text to appear on multiple lines and check Scroll long text to have the text scroll in a box.
7. Click Limit of characters and enter the number of characters you want to limit a response to. Something like a zip code would work here.
8. Check Password to password secure a field.
9. Check Combo of Characters to create a comb field. Comb fields are designed for characters to be added in individual boxes. The number of boxes are defined in the text box that appears after you check the Combo of Characters box.
10. Format. If you want a format other than text, such as a date or custom format, then choose an option from the Select format category drop down menu.
11. Validation. If you want the field data to be validated, you need to know JavaScript. Check Run custom validation script and type the JavaScript code to validate the field data.
12. Calculate. If the field is to be calculated, check an option for calculating data.