A seasoned professional speaker, the Principal of independent training provider Practicalia has been an active participant on expert panels around the US for years, but hasn’t always walked this path. After previous stints in applied science, production art and film stripping, Claudia McCue “segued into being a trainer” after attending an inspiringly bad software class and resolving that there must be a better way.
These days, she describes herself as a graphic arts trainer and consultant whose role is “teaching designers and printers to understand each others’ needs, so that they’ll stop making each other miserable.” Facilitating the graphic arts equivalent of world peace is a daunting task, but this erstwhile “chemistry major with artistic leanings” takes it all in stride.
When I approached Claudia about her first impressions of Adobe’s major PDF software release, she was more than happy to oblige. The full text of the interview follows.
DAN SHEA, Planet PDF Associate Editor: In your opinion, what is the best thing about the new Acrobat 7.0 product family?
CLAUDIA MCCUE, Principal, Practicalia: That’s a tough one: there are improvements across the board — improved speed, refined interface, enhanced appeal to a wide audience, from architectural users to the graphic arts. If I have to pick just one aspect, it would be the greatly improved speed of launch and overall responsiveness.
SHEA: What are 2-3 cool features of the new releases (big or small)?
MCCUE:
- Print Production Toolbar (especially the Ink Manager)
- Enabling PDFs for Reader users to comment
- Enabling Reader users to export and email form dataSHEA: With Acrobat 7.0 Professional, it will be possible to activate full commenting functionality for users of the free Reader on a per-document basis. This represents a major shift in Adobe’s previous policy of not allowing changes to be saved in Reader. What impact do you think this will have on document review processes around the world?
MCCUE: I suppose it’s a mixed blessing to provide more opportunities for more people to gripe :-) (In the olden days, we used to trim off excess white areas of contract proofs to discourage mark-up. Then some twit invented PostIt Notes…) I suspect that, initially, it will stall some sales of full Acrobat. But it may have the long-term effect of spurring interest in the full version, by forcing laggard users to download Reader 7.0, thus exposing them to extensive subliminal messages on the Adobe site.
SHEA: Do you think the activation of commenting functionality is something that Adobe will make available to 3rd-parties — in other words, do you think that developers will be permitted to enable the enhanced functionality with plug-ins or stand-alone applications?
MCCUE: Hard to say; since Reader 7.0 allows the main functions of commenting (making comments, as well as importing and exporting them), most general needs would be met by the built-in capabilities. I can’t see any benefit to Adobe in protecting this territory: if there are markets for proprietary or complex implementations of commenting, especially if implementation is only possible via full-blown Acrobat, it’s to Adobe’s benefit to expose the hooks to plug-in developers, spurring more sales of Acrobat.
SHEA: OK, let’s look at the other side: is there anything that you would like to have seen that’s not in v7.0?
MCCUE: It’s still difficult to dig down and select elements with the TouchUp Object tool. I confess that I keep a copy of Acrobat 5.0 for just that purpose.
And I’m disappointed that, while Reader allows exporting of data as XML from forms (if they were created in Forms Designer), it still refuses to allow saving a filled-out form.
PERFORMANCE AND PLATFORMS
SHEA: In forums and at conferences, one issue that just keeps coming up — particularly since the release of v6.0 — is the slow loading times of Acrobat. With the Acrobat 7.0 family, Adobe has tackled this head-on with the creation of a “speed launcher” for Windows users in addition to other tweaks for both Mac and Windows platforms. What do you think of the changes, and have you noticed any significant improvements in performance with v7.0?
MCCUE: Here are my results:
Macintosh OS X 10.3.5; G4 1.5GHz PowerBook; 1G RAM- Acrobat 6.0 Pro: 12 seconds
vDistiller 6.0: 5 seconds - Acrobat 7.0 Pro [beta 5]: 2.5 seconds
- Distiller 7 [beta 5]: 6 seconds (actually slower than v.6)
Windows XP Pro, SP1; IBM ThinkPad 1.7GHz; 1G RAM
- Acrobat 6.0 Pro: 4 seconds
- Distiller 6.0: 2 seconds
- Acrobat 7.0 Pro [beta 5]: <1 second (first launch was 14 seconds, but following launches were almost instantaneous)
- Distiller 7 [beta 5]: <1 second (first launch was 21 seconds, but subsequent launches almost instantaneous
Wow-it’s the Microwave Acrobat! One downside: This will make us impatient with other applications… Hurry up, Photoshop!
SHEA: Any general observations on feature parity between the Windows and Macintosh versions?
MCCUE: It’s a relief to be able to view PDFs in a browser on the Mac again (although, apparently, only in Safari). At least, this facilitates forms submission on the Macintosh.
I’m disappointed that PDFMaker is still so anemic on the Mac: it’s slow, and can’t even translate hyperlinks (although it does tag for accessibility and reflow). It asks each time where the Printer Setup Utility is, and there are no options for controlling PDF output. I have both PCs and Macs, and when I need full functionality, I just use a PC. But not all Mac users have a computer for each hand.
As many others do [by which I mean Max], I lament that Forms Designer is Windows-only. Since I’m platform-bilingual, I’m not terribly hampered by that limitation, but it is as if Adobe thinks nobody builds forms on the Mac. Perhaps there are operating system issues that hinder porting Designer to the Mac (I can’t say: I’m not a programmer), but surely there’s a way to provide some of the functionality of Designer for Macintosh users. Whether there’s sufficient market incentive, given that Windows Acrobat users no doubt outnumber Macintosh users, I can’t say. Maybe this is an attractive opportunity for some Mac developers.
3RD-PARTY DEVELOPMENT ECOSYSTEM
SHEA: As with Acrobat 6.0, Adobe has added a significant amount of functionality for creative professionals and designers. In particular, key features that were previously the domain of such 3rd-party plug-ins as Enfocus PitStop Professional have now been added to the Pro version of Acrobat. What do you think of the new prepress features? How do they compare with what has historically been possible with specialized plug-ins?
MCCUE: The Print Production tools do add some very useful capabilities. The Ink Manager, borrowed from InDesign, allows remapping of spot colors — for example, combining “PMS 123 CVC” and “Pantone 123 C” and “Spot Yellow” for output on the correct single plate. The ability to convert RGB content to CMYK within Acrobat is great: previously, you were at the mercy of your RIP’s conversion LUTs [look-up tables], and generally disappointed by the conversion. These two additions are very valuable for prepress.
The forensic tools have been enhanced — Output Preview provides more granular control while playing “what’s wrong with this picture.” While it’s thoughtful that Reader is now capable of Overprint Preview, it would have been more thoughtful to make the on/off control available in a toolbar, rather than buried in Preferences.
But third-party plug-ins like PitStop, ARTS PDF Aerialist and Quite A Box of Tricks don’t have anything to fear from this release: to do extensive editing, those add-ons are still necessary.
SHEA: How you think this will affect the PDF prepress 3rd-party plug-in development “ecosystem” going forward?
MCCUE: While Acrobat 7.0 Professional ventures more deeply into preflighting and editing PDFs, it’s still necessary for 3rd-party suppliers to provide all the tailored solutions required by particular workflows. While some small “one-trick pony” developers may be rendered redundant, plug-in vendors like ARTS PDF, Enfocus and Quite, as well as server-side providers like Appligent and ActivePDF, all sell solutions that I think Adobe is unlikely to incorporate anytime soon.
SHEA: How likely do you think it is that Adobe will expand Acrobat’s prepress functionality in future editions? If it is to be upgraded, do you think that the additional functionality is more likely to be bought or built? Why?
MCCUE: I think the likelihood of including enhanced prepress tools depends on Adobe’s perception of which market is more promising: enterprise or the graphic arts. If prepress support is further enhanced, I’d expect Adobe to buy rather than build.
SHEA: The entry-level license for Acrobat Elements has been reduced from 1,000 seats to 100 seats for version 7.0. What impact do you think this will have on the competitive landscape in the lower-end of PDF creation tools?
MCCUE: I have no idea how well Elements sold at the 1,000-seat minimum; I suspect that the high entry threshold contributed to the increase in inexpensive (or free) third-party PDF-creation tools. If those solutions have gained a foothold in the interim, lowering the entry fee for what is essentially a beheaded Distiller may not substantially increase its appeal.
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- Acrobat 6.0 Pro: 12 seconds
This article was last modified on January 18, 2023
This article was first published on January 12, 2005
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