The Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) file is one of the most ubiquitous means of communication on the Internet, so when it comes to PDF editors, it's pretty hard to top the folk who pioneered the format way back in 1992, the year the IBM ThinkPad 700C was created. Here is an updated review and quick look at some of the new features of Adobe Acrobat Pro DC.
Adobe Acrobat DC has a long and complete history on the market for PDF editors, but has consistently retained its status as one of, if not the best, PDF editing tool for most users. When it comes to power users who need many advanced features, you'd be hard pressed to find a better tool set than what Acrobat Pro DC can offer.
Acrobat DC allows you to create PDFs from a wide range of file types, send them out for comments and electronic signatures, and protect sensitive information with encryption, password protection, and text redaction. Adobe Acrobat is composed of three elements: Acrobat DC, Adobe Document Cloud, and Acrobat Reader DC. Users can subscribe to a Pro or Standard version of Acrobat DC that costs a few dollars more for the former. The Pro version includes a few new features exclusive to it, such as document comparison, Optical Character Recognition, and redaction. Both versions include standard editing features such as splitting and merging documents or compressing documents, as well.
What’s great about this version of Acrobat DC? It’s thoroughly designed to work across multiple, different devices and excels with a snappy and responsive interface. The experience is consistent across different types of devices, whether that be the desktop, mobile app, or web version. One criticism, however, of Acrobat Pro DC is that the interface is a bit bloated (in standard Adobe fashion) and can be confusing for first-time users, but Adobe has added a new tour experience that walks you through the process of making Acrobat your default PDF editor, adding your PDF files, and introducing you to capabilities such as combining PDFs or arranging pages. The following is just a handful of some of the useful things that you can do with Acrobat DC.
Secure Your Documents
Whether you have business-sensitive information or you're just managing your own personal documents, Adobe has since added the ability to black out information such as credit card numbers, social security numbers, or addresses easily before sharing PDFs. This is especially helpful to ensure safe communication between businesses and customers, medical providers and insurance companies, schools and students, and, of course, law firms and courts. PDFs often carry metadata that may contain sensitive information and Acrobat Pro DC is able to remove the redacted text to keep info private.
Combine and Compare
The Combine Files tool allows you to manage multiple file formats such as Word, PowerPoint, image files, and more—easily—to create a single PDF. The UI allows you to simply drag and drop multiple files into Acrobat DC for quick and easy editing. With Acrobat DC, you can manage all the documents from a single application, including those on Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, and others. You can edit text and images, rotate, and rearrange pages, and add rich media such as video and audio clips. Acrobat Pro DC also includes a comparison function that can automatically find and highlight the changes between two versions of the same document.
Easily Convert and Fill PDFs
A feature new to Adobe Acrobat Pro DC is the ability to extract text and convert scanned paper documents into PDFs easily using optical character recognition (OCR). Acrobat Pro is even able to match text and formatting to preserve the exact look and feel of your documents, but with the added functionality of including text, you can search and copy. On the digital side of things, Acrobat Pro’s “Convert Web Page to Adobe PDF” function has some quirks; it generally does a better job of making web pages appear less jumbled. Another benefit is adding web pages to an existing PDF instead of having to track and organize multiple documents.
Although many of its features are now available in less expensive PDF editors, Acrobat remains the industry standard, and that alone is reason to consider it. PDFs are used in everything from brochures to manuals and it’s clear that Adobe Acrobat DC offers the most comprehensive suite of tools for PDF creation, editing, and collaboration. Thanks to Adobe's subscription-based format, you'll always have the latest version of the software, and a subscription unlocks additional editing features on Adobe's app versions of its Reader app, as well.
What are some of your favorite features of Adobe Acrobat Pro DC? Tell us about them in the Comments section, below.
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