Adobe releases free Acrobat 8 Reader

Is this a universal Binary?

There is a PPC and an Intel version. They were separated to keep the download size down.

Note that this is *NOT* a Universal release. They did separate compiles-one for PPC, one for Intel. What, did the developers not know that you can check both boxes in XCode?

What a pain - especially for IT managers! Thanks, Adobe (*gives them the finger*).

Since version 6 (the first one on OS X), this piece of software was called Adobe Reader. Acrobat is the commercial software that allows creation of PDF files. It is definitely not free (unlike the Reader).

It should be clear to everyone (including Adobe) that the naming of the Acrobat family of products has been unfortunate since the very beginnings. Even though it was initially called Acrobat Reader, everybody just called it Acrobat. Adobe's attempt to change that by renaming the free portion to just Adobe Reader didn't succeed (as evidenced by the incorrect title of this article, four years after the name was changed). They should devinitely figure something out to attempt to eliminate this confusion (perhaps Adobe Viewer?).

I tried this for about 15 minutes and then trashed it and went back to version 7. Version 7 is MUCH easier to use, has a better UI, and is actually SPEEDY. Version 8 is sluggish at best and feels very heavy when trying to use it. I have 1GB of RAM on a brand new MacBook. Acrobat Reader should not be an issue to run. Adobe is really falling behind here...

Note that this is *NOT* a Universal release. They did separate compiles-one for PPC, one for Intel. What, did the developers not know that you can check both boxes in XCode?

Read the comment above yours. Attempts at keeping code size down.

As for the naming, Acrobat Reader made much more sense then Adobe Reader. Does Adobe Reader read files produced by all Adobe Products? Not that I can tell (Of course, you could also argue that the "Reader" portion of that name is also really stupid)). Perhaps PDF Viewer or PDF Reader or Adobe PDF Displayer would be better names. Or perhaps something more honest, like Adobe Slow Launching Bloated PDF Viewer.

Well, once again my eBooks are hostage to Adobe's jaw-dropping actions. They don't work, and can't work with Adobe Reader 8. Turns out you need a new standalone app called "Digital Editions", that doesn't yet exist for the Mac. Attempting to open an eBook sends you to a site that lists the requirements, but no download link. Clicking on system requirements leads you to the requirements for a beta of the reader that, when you make it to the troubleshooting section, is slated for "Q4 2006". And that's for the beta release. In the specs on the Adobe Labs site, they essentially explain that Adobe Reader is too bloated to use for viewing eBooks and they're basically porting the technology they designed for handhelds to computers.

This is on the heels of the previous built in Digital Editions, which failed miserably if you so much as moved the installed folder or renamed your drive, resulting in a testy discussion with their support folk including vaguely threatening comments on their end prolly designed to weed out pirates.

As for the meeting part, you have to have an Adobe ID, and you can get a free trial, so you'll have to pay to hold Adobe meetings. If you get the trial set up, try this: share your screen then view that meeting. You get an infinite mirror effect.

Yikes.

I have now installed it on an old Quicksilver G4, as well as a CoreDuo iMac. On G4, it's somewhat faster than Reader 7. On the Intel iMac, however, the speed increase is drammatic (duh!!). Since 7 was PPC only, the optimised code in the 8 UB makes huge difference. I would say that jaredbkt may have installed a PPC version on his MacBook.

As for user interface, it's a matter of personal taste and preference (as well as habits). To me, it looks slimmer. On the other hand, Apple's Preview still beats UI of all other similar tools.

This tip is from version 6, but it should still work. Don't know how it is for Mac's but it should be similar. Adobe Reader 6.0 for Windows loads lots of unused plugins on startup. The Inquirer has a great article explaining how you can disable those unneeded plugins and make Adobe Reader load faster. Basically, you need to do the following:

1.Install Adobe Reader 6.0 and notice where it is installed. 2.Navigate to that folder in Explorer, locate the plug_ins subfolder and rename this folder to plug_ins_disabled. 3.Create a new plug_ins folder. 4.Move the files EWH32.api, printme.api and search.api from plug_ins_disabled to plug_ins.

I found 8 loaded faster AND rendered PDF files much faster than Reader 7 (PPC G5 machine). & was a slug, so I set Preview as my PDF reader, but was never happy at all with it. It's just too inflexible and completely uncustomizable... i.e. a typical corporate focused "free" app for X. After 10 minutes, Reader 8 is now my default PDF reader.

As for the name, I know there was a huge cry from users when it becomes Adobe Reader. They reacted and changed it back to Acrobat Reader (a name I find 100% correct). Of course, now that users got their way, it's time to start piling on complaints about them changing the name back! Sheesh!

Seems clear to me they are doing 2 separate versions in anticipation about getting slammed about being bloated (carrying code for the "other" machine). Getting slammed for changing the name back seems to bear this out. Still, I do agree it should be universal.