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While you're at it, maybe you can also convince these people to put their damned fonts in the public domain?

And it's also a different, NEWER build than what was available earlier...
The tar.gz file was replaced, but rpm's of both versions are still available (7.0.0-1 and 7.0.0-2). The first version presented itself as "7.0.0 03/11/2005", while the official version calls itself "7.0.0 03/21/2005" (but wasn't on the ftp site until much later).
The JavaScript/EScript.api fix works on both.
ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/unix/7x/7.0/e nu/
http://k-lug.org/~griswold/Progs/adobe7patch.html

I know that most slashdotters live in their own la-la land where everything is ascii and png but for real people in the real world who want to do work on a Linux workstation, Adobe's reader is a brilliant solution to a real problem.

Also, might I remind you that postscript is an Adobe technology.

PDF is an open standard, and anyone may write applications that can read or write PDFs royalty-free.

IMHO, the specification is well-written and easy to understand. If other companies wanting to make their file formats a standard were willing to make such good specifications freely available, I would quit calling them anti-competitive behemoths. (They know who they are.)

Why would anyone want to reverse engineer the PDF format when they can just download the specification from Adobe. With the exception of Microsoft's obfuscated RTF specification, it is generally easier to read a specification than to reverse engineer.

After all, why would they want to increase the possibility of someone reverse-engineering the PDF format and writing free/open source Acrobat production applications, when they're currently selling about seven of them, and all for a hefty chunk of change?

Except, of course, that there is no need at all to reverse-engineer the PDF format, since the full PDF specifications are available for download from Adobe, free of charge. And since there are oodles of open-source software that will write PDF.

Regards, Felix!

If you want open source, use Ghostscript. I assume (and they probably do too) that to open source part of one of their most lucrative product lines would commercial suicide. It's not like the file format is closed because it isn't.

Direct downloads:

Acrobat Reader 7.0--English for Linux® (.tar.gz), 38.2MB

Acrobat Reader 7.0--English for Linux® (.rpm), 38MB

Direct downloads:

Acrobat Reader 7.0--English for Linux® (.tar.gz), 38.2MB

Acrobat Reader 7.0--English for Linux® (.rpm), 38MB

ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/unix/7x/7.0/e nu/ for the slightly less impatient.
Is there any problem with lumping it in the "Unix" category. I thought Linux != Unix.

It seems to me that Adobe really has no self-motivated reason to go open-source with Acrobat Reader.

After all, why would they want to increase the possibility of someone reverse-engineering the PDF format and writing free/open source Acrobat production applications, when they're currently selling about seven of them, and all for a hefty chunk of change?

For the impatent:

ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/unix/7x/7.0/e nu/

Check out your local library and see if they're registered with NetLibrary, it's free if your library is registered with them. They have a decent collection of books.

Adobe offers a few free ebooks, both fiction and non-fiction. However, let me warn you, they are DRM'd.

Then there is also the Gutenberg Project as many others have already mentioned.

If you are using MS Reader, then Microsoft offers some free books as well.

Check out your local library and see if they're registered with NetLibrary, it's free if your library is registered with them. They have a decent collection of books.

Adobe offers a few free ebooks, both fiction and non-fiction. However, let me warn you, they are DRM'd.

Then there is also the Gutenberg Project as many others have already mentioned.

If you are using MS Reader, then Microsoft offers some free books as well.

I'm surprised I haven't seen a modded post about this mistake. In the list, the Photoshop CS website is listed as http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/main.html but it goes somewhere Completely different.

What concoction do you have to drink in order to mix those two up? There's not even anything from bitdefender on the list...

For some bundled versions of Photoshop Elements, Adobe provides discounted upgrades to Photoshop where your total expense is less than the sum of the two. I think Adobe should provide an upgrade at the price difference between the two for all versions of Elements.

Apple gets this right. Final Cut Express is $300, while Final Cut Pro is $1000. They also sell an Express-to-Pro upgrade for $700. This means that you can't buy Express and upgrade to Pro for any cheaper, but it does mean that if you later realized you needed the Pro version, the mistake wouldn't cost you money.

However, if your father was willing to consider piracy, then what he really wants is $650 software for $50. That can't be helped.

View the screenshots here:
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/

Photoshop Elements, $100 from Adobe but you can get it cheaper elsewhere.

While funny... it could happen. Adobe has not sat still when it comes to protecting their patents. Adobe and Macromedia were feuding in 2000 over:

Adobe sues Macromedia over customizable tabbed palettes.
Macromedia retaliates, sues Adobe over changing blended elements and automatic re-blending of elements.

Search Google with Adobe Macromedia Lawsuit for a nice looooong list of articles about this fued.

Sometime people trying to sound smart are too smart for their own good. The best example yet was related to me by a friend who teaches Photoshop at an adult school (pity him):

Tsk. Don't you know you should always say "Adobe® Photoshop® software" instead of just "Photoshop"?

Dude, quit using Photoshop as a verb.

You meant to say "I bet they've all been enhanced using Adobe Photoshop software."

You are lucky I was here. Next time I might not be around!

Adobe is pretty lax about piracy, as long as you're not reselling copies. Most people who aren't using it for commercial purposes buy it for $0. Think of it this way: are you going to pay $599 for software you have never used before? No. So, if one pirates it and THEN learns to use it, they may eventually go professional, and then have the money (and feel legally obligated, should a client question them) to buy it.

The turning-a-blind-eye-to-piracy approach allows people the opportunity to learn the software without a big investment, and once you have learned it, you're pretty much hooked. Then, when a new version of Photoshop comes out (and perhaps you aren't a broke script kiddie anymore), you consider actually buying it for the new features instead of waiting around for it to be cracked. You also know that your money won't go to software you will never use.

And even if you don't buy that argument, Adobe does have a cheaper version, called Photoshop Elements. It has features the casual user would need, and allows someone to grow familiar with the Photoshop interface before diving into the murky waters of $600 software.

That's an amazingly biased summary.

Point the first: Skylarov wrote the code on behalf of his employer. Any legal liabilities should have been theirs, not his.

Point the second: Skylarov lived and worked in Russia, a place where American law doesn't apply.

Point the third: Skylarov was arrested under the DMCA, which is a bad, nasty, pointless, stupid law which effectively overthrows the balance of rights that has always existed between publishers and their customers, replacing it with a simple maxim: Publishers can limit the use of their works in whatever ways technology will allow. Further, because of the anti-circumvention portions (which make basic security research illegal) they don't even have to be terribly clever about it. DMCA kills fair use, time shifting, format shifting, etc., unless the publishers deem it in their interests to allow it. Finally, the DMCA allows publishers to protect their works in such ways as will allow them to retain complete control over their works even after the work should have reached the public domain (not that anything new will ever enter the public domain in this country).

Bad laws shouldn't exist. People shouldn't be prosecuted under bad laws. Case closed.

Point the fourth: One of your assertions is flat out wrong. After a meeting with the EFF, Adobe dropped its support for the prosecution of Dmitri Skylarov [press release]. They're still pursuing the case against Elcomsoft.

Don't care about the Skylarov case? Fine. Don't care to boycott Adobe? No problem. But don't come in here and try to misrepresent the case to a group of people who were watching when it happened.

Oops. Looks like Adobe accidentally let slip the details of the next PhotoShop version due on Friday. According to BetaNews, the next version, dubbed PhotoShop CS2,

Let me be the first to correct the editor and say it's Photoshop, not PhotoShop.

I started downloading the RPM for 7.0 from the FTP, and it crapped out on me. I am retrieving it again, and for some reason, I'm grabbing AdobeReader_enu-8.0.0-1.i386.rpm, yet the ftp index still says 7.0.0. I call shenanigans!!

Adobe Announces Acrobat 7.0 Software Availability

Beta Customers Applaud Higher-Value Uses of Adobe PDF

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Jan. 5, 2005 -- Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced the immediate availability of Adobe® Acrobat® 7.0 software, a family of desktop applications that enables workgroups to manage a range of essential business activities. Acrobat 7.0, the latest update to the Adobe Intelligent Document Platform, provides users the ability to assemble documents from multiple sources, create intelligent forms, and collaborate on projects inside and outside the firewall, among other capabilities. ...

Adobe also announced the immediate availability of Adobe Reader® 7.0, including a public beta version for the Linux® operating system. The company's free client software can be downloaded at www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html. In addition to the ability to reliably view and print Adobe PDF files, Adobe Reader 7.0 now offers more powerful capabilities. Users can participate in document reviews, have Yahoo! Search capabilities at their fingertips and can interact with 3D objects placed in PDF. Adobe has distributed over half-a-billion copies of Adobe Reader since its 1993 introduction.

Adobe Announces Acrobat 7.0 Software Availability

Beta Customers Applaud Higher-Value Uses of Adobe PDF

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Jan. 5, 2005 -- Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced the immediate availability of Adobe® Acrobat® 7.0 software, a family of desktop applications that enables workgroups to manage a range of essential business activities. Acrobat 7.0, the latest update to the Adobe Intelligent Document Platform, provides users the ability to assemble documents from multiple sources, create intelligent forms, and collaborate on projects inside and outside the firewall, among other capabilities. ...

Adobe also announced the immediate availability of Adobe Reader® 7.0, including a public beta version for the Linux® operating system. The company's free client software can be downloaded at www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html. In addition to the ability to reliably view and print Adobe PDF files, Adobe Reader 7.0 now offers more powerful capabilities. Users can participate in document reviews, have Yahoo! Search capabilities at their fingertips and can interact with 3D objects placed in PDF. Adobe has distributed over half-a-billion copies of Adobe Reader since its 1993 introduction.

It's nice to have Reader, but it's really shame that there is still, as far as I know, no Linux solution for enabling commenting tools. One needs Acrobat Pro (Windows only) to do that. I was under impression that PDF format is pretty much well understood. How hard it is to add this commenting layer? It seems to me that the ability to add comments to PDF would be extremely useful.

Actually, does anybody know whether, after one enables this in Acrobat Pro, commenting tools work in Linux Reader?

One really cool thing about the 7.0 version of Adobe Readers is that they can be extended with Adobe LiveCycle Reader Extensions to add features that are normally only available when you buy Adobe Acrobat. Of course, Reader Extensions costs something. But what's great is that given the right "pixie dust", Linux is no longer a platform for just viewing PDFs, but it can do PDF Collaboration and forms routing just like its Windows and Macintosh counterparts.

For the impatent:

ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/unix/7x/7.0/e nu/

PDF is an open standard, as for your suggestion of exporting to PS (which by the way, is also an Adobe proposed standard), I suggest you give it a try and then post your findings back.

ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/unix/7x/7.0/e nu/ for a clickable link! :(

(posting anonymously to save my ass)

This article is 100% bullshit.

If you actually search the support documents, you can find instructions for removing PDFMaker. Or, if you're doing a first-time installation, you can just do a custom installation and *gasp* tell it not to install PDFMaker to begin with!

What made version 6.0 and 7.0 annoying is the "self-heal" feature that would put the PDFMaker files back after you deleted them. However, if you use the custom install approach, the self-heal will not put PDFmaker back.

Trivia: I personally have spoken with people who either want PDFMaker gone or want it back. The latter grossly outnumber the former.

(posting anonymously to save my ass)

This article is 100% bullshit.

If you actually search the support documents, you can find instructions for removing PDFMaker. Or, if you're doing a first-time installation, you can just do a custom installation and *gasp* tell it not to install PDFMaker to begin with!

What made version 6.0 and 7.0 annoying is the "self-heal" feature that would put the PDFMaker files back after you deleted them. However, if you use the custom install approach, the self-heal will not put PDFmaker back.

Trivia: I personally have spoken with people who either want PDFMaker gone or want it back. The latter grossly outnumber the former.

Simple fix:

Just install the minimum version of Reader, and not the Full version.

Go here:

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.ht ml

Choose your OS and connection speed, and then DESELECT the checkbox next to "Download the full version of Adobe Reader..."

The "Minimum" install allows you to read PDF files just fine.

You probably also want to deselect the other two checkboxes, unless you want more crap to get installed...

I need to make a PDF so infrequently I can just use the online conversion tool. You get 5 free conversions. I only need it once in a blue moon so I have 2 free conversions left. Works great.

This article is ridiculous. I've been a user of (BUY ADOBE ACROBAT!!!!) Adobe's toolbar and I have never seen any (BUY ADOBE ACROBAT!!!!) evidence of being infected with any sort of adware (BUY ADOBE ACROBAT!!!!) or malware.

This article is ridiculous. I've been a user of (BUY ADOBE ACROBAT!!!!) Adobe's toolbar and I have never seen any (BUY ADOBE ACROBAT!!!!) evidence of being infected with any sort of adware (BUY ADOBE ACROBAT!!!!) or malware.

This article is ridiculous. I've been a user of (BUY ADOBE ACROBAT!!!!) Adobe's toolbar and I have never seen any (BUY ADOBE ACROBAT!!!!) evidence of being infected with any sort of adware (BUY ADOBE ACROBAT!!!!) or malware.

Adobe will convert them. Next time google before you beg.

In other news, it looks like Adobe Reader 7 for Linux has been released. Direct downloads listed below:

tar.gz
rpm

Their website doesn't mention it yet, but it's there. Here's a screenshot.

Posting this here since I submitted this story but it will probably be rejected (as usual).

In other news, it looks like Adobe Reader 7 for Linux has been released. Direct downloads listed below:

tar.gz
rpm

Their website doesn't mention it yet, but it's there. Here's a screenshot.

Posting this here since I submitted this story but it will probably be rejected (as usual).

CoolEdit was bought by Adobe and is now available under the name Adobe Audition. Perhaps you were referring to the lack of a budget version of the software, however, in which case, yeah, that kinda sucks.

MSN's desktop search tool will search PDF files if you install Adobe's Acrobat IFilter plugin. I've found it valuable several times.

I haven't actually seen another Windows based tool do that

Adobe provides a filter for the built-in Windows indexing service.

WiMAX has a theoretical bandwidth (warning: pdf, see pg 5) of about 4.5Mbps per 3.5Mhz channel (outdoors, range 15km)

Thanks a million. I'm hoping it's suburban outdoor so I can download important stuff faster there. You know, like Vega Strike or something. <offtopic>I wouldn't put "warning: pdf" though--at least for those who have broadband and version 7. I have it on now and I was able to get to that page without waiting for no stinkin' badges. I mean, plugins. They know how important that is--just look at the first list item. (Version 6 users know what to do.)</offtopic>

WiMAX has a theoretical bandwidth (warning: pdf, see pg 5) of about 4.5Mbps per 3.5Mhz channel (outdoors, range 15km)

Thanks a million. I'm hoping it's suburban outdoor so I can download important stuff faster there. You know, like Vega Strike or something. <offtopic>I wouldn't put "warning: pdf" though--at least for those who have broadband and version 7. I have it on now and I was able to get to that page without waiting for no stinkin' badges. I mean, plugins. They know how important that is--just look at the first list item. (Version 6 users know what to do.)</offtopic>

This is nothing new...Adobe Acrobat Reader 7 includes this piece of crap as well.

Adobe are bundling the Yahoo Toolbar with the new Acrobat Reader 7 for Windows, along with Photoshop Album SE and 7.2 MB of extra plugins. The Yahoo Toolbar then installs not only to IE, but also to the Reader itself. To hide it in Adobe Reader, you need to right-click its toolbar and untick "Search the Internet".

But they do at least offer you a choice: you can choose not to download any or all of these extras, by unticking a few boxes on the download page, which appear after you've chose Windows as the target OS. And they're not pushing this junk with their SVG viewer. Yet. :)

As noted above, this only affects users of MS Underpants Exploder for now. But I wonder if Adobe, Macromedia or other vendors will start offering Yahoo Toolbar for Firefox soon, and on other OSes? Linux and Mac versions of the Firefox Toolbar are reportedly on the way.

It's just one more good reason to use Free and OSS software whenever possible, like GPLFlash, Ghostscript and PDFcreator: no clueless marketing droids "adding value" unasked.