Adobe Acrobat Annoyances

[beameup 0]

I have been using v. 5.02 for years because it is small and doesn't nag you and has a search function.

Now, I am constantly reminded that some of these immigration forms may not work properly unless I upgrade.

So I have upgraded, first to 6.0 and now to 7.0.

I am considering rolling back to my original 5.02 because I cannot see any benefits and there are some downsides as well.

Has anyone had any experience with Adobe Acrobat that they can share. It's an Apple program and I am just not that familiar with it.

[DeadPoolX 9]

Adobe Acrobat is for PC as well as the Mac. So it's not strictly an "Apple program." In fact, Adobe purposefully makes their products for both platforms.

Anyway, what exactly are you looking to do? Revert back to a previous version of Acrobat? Do you have Acrobat or Reader? Reader is the free version and Acrobat is the one you pay for (it also allows you to create PDF files). I don't know of a definitive way to "roll back" your version on either Acrobat or Reader, with the exception of uninstalling the current version and reinstalling an older version. Maybe that doesn't really answer your question, but that's about all the advice I have.

[CarolineM 0]

i have version 8.0 and i love it.

works well for me.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I have version 5 (full version), which still works fine for creating PDF’s but I get that update message too even though I have updated Acrobat Reader to the latest version. My guess is there’s some conflict with the file associations – that defaults somehow to the full (old) version of Acrobat, rather than the ‘new’ reader.

[beameup 0]

I'll just refer Apple to a "NAG" Software company.

I prefer the older version: Old Version.com

Adobe Acrobat is for PC as well as the Mac. So it's not strictly an "Apple program." In fact, Adobe purposefully makes their products for both platforms.

[Dan J 277]

You can sometimes co-install a new version of reader, while keeping an old version of the full application.

But generally, if you do want the forms to work completly, its best to upgrade to the newest version. The kinko's I went to to print off the forms didnt have the new version installed And I ran into some problems with it.

[KansasDragon 1]

Your biggest issues with staying with old version of Adobe's Acrobat Reader (note: it is not an Apple product, never has been) is that if someone creates new Acrobat documents using one of the newer versions of Acrobat, using all of it's new features and forms, then you won't be able to properly read it with an older version.

I'll agree, the newer versions take more disk space, more memory, and have the really irritating "update me now" popups, but you're much better off staying on a more recent version, so you don't end up with improper forms.

[Dr_LHA 3]

I'll just refer Apple to a "NAG" Software company.

What does that mean exactly?

BTW - I'd echo using version 8. I've used it on Windows and it seems a big improvement over 7. I did all my AOS forms using Acrobat Pro version 6 for the Mac, I'll admit, but thats because I own a copy of that software. Don't actually think its worth buying, but at the time I did I needed it to fill out some forms to get a grant, so it paid for itself nicely.

PS. Acrobat isn't just on Mac and Windows, its on Linux, Symbian, Palm, Pocket PC, Solaris and a bunch of other OSes. It has never been an Apple product. In fact Mac OS has a built in PDF reader (Preview) that pretty much makes 99% of the need for Acrobat unnecessary on Macs.

[beameup 0]

I don't know, perhaps I associated Photoshop with Macintosh many years ago and drew an incorrect conclusion.

Anyway, I use Word for Windows 95 on my new Windows XP machine and everything works great - a simple word processor that does everything I want and nothing I don't want. No incompatibility issues, no "nags". Acrobat 6 constantly automatically starts searching the internet for "upgrades" everytime I open it--and I have to "tell it NO" and terminate the "search". Then there is the INCOMPATIBILITY issue. Why can't they produce a product that just works "like a word processor" for filling out forms and quit "upgrading" it every year or two? You would think that a simple task like that would have been established a decade ago. Everytime I begin to fill out the next Immigration Form it seems to need an Acrobat "upgrade". "Coversheets" and "Barcode Sheets" for James' shortcuts - just open Word 95 and type away!

I'll just refer Apple to a "NAG" Software company.

What does that mean exactly?

BTW - I'd echo using version 8. I've used it on Windows and it seems a big improvement over 7. I did all my AOS forms using Acrobat Pro version 6 for the Mac, I'll admit, but thats because I own a copy of that software. Don't actually think its worth buying, but at the time I did I needed it to fill out some forms to get a grant, so it paid for itself nicely.

PS. Acrobat isn't just on Mac and Windows, its on Linux, Symbian, Palm, Pocket PC, Solaris and a bunch of other OSes. It has never been an Apple product. In fact Mac OS has a built in PDF reader (Preview) that pretty much makes 99% of the need for Acrobat unnecessary on Macs.

[Dan J 277]

You can save a PDF from acrobat as an earlier version. Which works fine, unless the file uses a feature only available in newer versions of the PDF format. Which i think it does, thats how it is able to fill out all 4 pages when you only fill out the first.

Word format has been handled a little diffrently, It has generally been compatible across versions to an extent. Word 95 had its own format, word 97-2003 had shared the same format. Now word 2007 introduced a new format. But microsoft has released updates for previous versions to read the new document format. Though i dont they are supporting word 95 with the new work 2007 format, they did for office 2003 and probably office XP.

[Dr_LHA 3]

I don't know, perhaps I associated Photoshop with Macintosh many years ago and drew an incorrect conclusion.

Oh so when you said "Apple are a "NAG company" you meant "Adobe are a NAG company". Fair enough, I'd agree with you on that I guess. Although I'd say NAG are more of a NAG company.

Then there is the INCOMPATIBILITY issue. Why can't they produce a product that just works "like a word processor" for filling out forms and quit "upgrading" it every year or two? You would think that a simple task like that would have been established a decade ago. Everytime I begin to fill out the next Immigration Form it seems to need an Acrobat "upgrade". "Coversheets" and "Barcode Sheets" for James' shortcuts - just open Word 95 and type away!

You realise there have been many versions of Word since '95, and that they introduce all sorts of incompatibilities right? In fact if USCIS released their forms as Word documents, they most likely wouldn't load into Word '95.

[KansasDragon 1]

Just an FYI, go under EDIT, PREFERENCES, click on UPDATES in the left hand column. Then change you settings to "Do not automatically check for critical updates" and uncheck the "Display notification dialog at startup" and you should be rid of most of the NAG screens..

[beameup 0]

Thanks for the info.

An interesting note: When filling out the DS-230 I used the "VisaPro" version which has blue fields where the cursor starts at the left. However, when I got to page 3, the fields for Residences and Jobs would "cut-off" the top half of

each word - (the entry was not "centered" in the blue field). So, just for page 3, I had to use the U.S. Government website DS-230 form in which there are some "yellow" fields to enter information and the type size is smaller and the cursor starts in the center of the field (space). Also, it will not allow you to enter the word "present" when referring to your current address (from mm-yyyy to mm-yyy) so that had to be entered with a pen. These were both the latest versions of the DS-230 BTW.

Just one example of some of the very weird things I have encountered with Adobe Acrobat Immigration forms .

Just an FYI, go under EDIT, PREFERENCES, click on UPDATES in the left hand column. Then change you settings to "Do not automatically check for critical updates" and uncheck the "Display notification dialog at startup" and you should be rid of most of the NAG screens..

[Niels Bohr 72]

I hate newer versions of software because it slows down my computer. I prefer just keeping them the same if the capacity to do my work remains the same whether or not I upgrade. It wouldn't make sense to spend extra money on computer hardware when you do the work the same way as before.