Looks like the guys at NitroPDF have been busy - there’s a new version and it’s looking very hot indeed!

The user interface was one of my biggest bug bears and it’s been completely overhauled.  The interface now follows the excellent ‘Ribbon’ UI created and in use by Microsoft (specifically Microsoft Office 2007).  A whole raft of new features have been added and even more importantly the performance seems to be twice that of the previous version.

So if you’re after a PDF editor, you might like to try Nitro PDF Professional.

Dave ……..
p.s.  Site should be back to normal after the lovely defacement that took place earlier in the month.

A. Simple Object Access Protocol is a W3C standard providing a way for two computer programs to communicate and exchange data.We’ve written an article explaining what SOAP is and how Acrobat 6 utilises it. Take a look in our articles section.

With all the current noise about the legal matters surrounding the inclusion of a PDF generation function in Office 12 and Adobe’s problem with that, it got me thinking about some of the challenges that Adobe will be facing from Microsoft on other fronts.

There’s no question that the folks at Adobe developed one of the most influential and useful file formats we have ever seen. From my point of view several key factors set PDF apart from other file formats:

1. The structure is known and publicly documented.
2. It’s very actively maintained.
3. Anyone can create PDF files.
4. It’s truly portable and without change.
5. Resolution independent.
6. It’s heritage comes from Postscript

In retrospect Microsoft’s core binary file formats -XLS, DOC and PPT are:

1. Not publicly documented
2. Not always updated with each new version of Office
3. Can only be created by Microsoft Apps or very few third party tools
4. Windows Only (and Mac but not 100% compatible)
5. What’s resolution?
6. Owned by Microsoft

Microsoft have developed a new specification for an electronic paper technology system for the creation, viewing, conversion and printing of content into the new format. This system will be built right into Vista and that specification is called XML Paper Specification (XPS). This really addresses the concerns people have with the existing core document formats.

Read the rest of this entry »

My mates at WindJack are at it again. They’ve just released another great feature packed upgrade to PDF CanOpener, version 2.0!

If you don’t know what PDF CanOpener is you can check out our articles or visit the products page on their website.

My Top Five features are:

• Extract images directly from an XObject
• Create Javascript Buttons
• Edit COS Structures DIRECTLY! (this is my favourite)
• UnEmbed Fonts
• Those Info Popup windows

If your quick you might be able to get it on sale ($30 less RRP).

Dave …….

AcroTips.com finally has it’s blog back.  A few years ago I started a blog, but due to the popularity of the site and the lack of ‘captcha’ technology integrated into the blog software I was using it became totally unmanageable and left me with no choice but to disable comments.

Eventually it became unmanageable with the amount of spam, tracking etc that I had to remove it.

BUT!  I’m back and armed with a more powerful friend - Wordpress 2.0!.

I’m going to aim to do at least one post a week and more if I can find the time and interesting enough topic.  If anyone out there wants to see specific topics, articles and even more tips let more know via the comments or the email address.

Dave Wraight …