Hi Troy,
You have indeed identified a very good and valid reason to want to test your
PDF files under Reader as opposed to the full Adobe Acrobat product. Similar
issues are use of sophisticated Javascript and forms capabilities in PDF files.
However, I still believe and insist that if you try to test with Reader on the
same physical and logical system on which you have created your PDF, you are
seriously compromising your testing. Why?
(1) If you have both Reader and Acrobat installed in parallel, only
one of these two "owns" the .PDF extension for purposes of double-clicking in
places such as Windows Explorer, browsers, and e-mail clients and it is not
easy to do a switcherooni to cause one or the other of Reader or Acrobat to
"own" the PDF extension. Except for the browser, the last installed "wins." Too
easy to find yourself in the "wrong" client due to this.
(2) The typical authoring system is much better endowed in terms of
hardware and software resources than the typical client system (yes, I know
that many technical writers end up with ancient, engineering hand-me-downs, but
you'd be surprised how good those are compared to the typical enterprise client
system which is often running on ancient hardware and much older software
versions. Such clients are often running on memory and disk constrained systems
with limited network access, only the system fonts installed (those provided
with the OS), old e-mail clients versions, old browser versions, and ancient
versions of Adobe Reader (7 or earlier).
As such, you really should be running your PDF file testing in a "sandbox" with
limited resources. This sandbox could take the form of old hand-me-down systems
with the barest software configuration installed or perhaps even a virtualized
system using VMWare or similar products. The latter solution doesn't simulate
limited hardware resources, but it would allow you to have virtual limited
software setups for a number of old versions of Reader and for that matter,
other less-capable PDF "readers" from third parties that your documents'
receivers may be using. And if you are really serious about this, you might
also setup a not-quite-up-to-date Macintosh and test what happens when your PDF
files are opened up with the MacOS Preview program (often not a very pretty
site).
- Dov
From: Troy Fey [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2010 9:25 AM
To: Dov Isaacs
Cc: dr_gonzo at pobox.com; Framers E-mail List
Subject: Re: Acrobat 9 - a disaster
Dov -- I save all your responses. Thanks for your continued support. I
believe I have a justification for why one would have an installation of Adobe
Reader co-existing with an installation of Adobe Acrobat.
We've had to use Adobe Reader to verify the digital signature and mark-up
capabilities were properly enabled by Adobe Acrobat. We've had several
round-trip exercises with SMEs and our Tech Writer where these capabilities
weren't properly enabled in the PDF. Mistakes happen, but because our Tech
Writer didn't have a separate installation of Adobe Reader he failed to verify
they were enabled before sending them out for review/signature and that lead to
a lot of SME frustration. Please excuse my ignorance if this is already
common knowledge, but it seemed to be relevant for this thread. Is there a way
to emulate the limited capabilities of Adobe Reader within Acrobat?
-- Troy
Dov Isaacs wrote:
Steve,
Read the original thread. I am not going to repeat everything (and
it was quite a lot) that was discussed on this forum a few weeks ago,
especially related to engineering and testing discipline as far as
how PDF files are viewed and processed under what circumstances.
But NO, there is nothing WRITTEN about this from Adobe. On the other
hand, you should trust what I am telling you based on my 21 years at
Adobe and my working with Acrobat and Reader since Release 1 of same
as well as having to debug workflows and PDF files during all that time.
Quite frankly, the only time I had problems with anyone viewing a PDF
file that I produced on Acrobat-only systems (no Reader co-installed)
were with users who insisted on using St. Steve the Infallible's MacOS
Preview program's subset PDF viewing capabilities (or lack thereof).
The fact that Adobe doesn't prohibit you from parallel installation of
Acrobat and Reader doesn't mean that such installations are recommended
or really useful.
- Dov
