Adobe | The Connected Lawyer

I make no secret about the fact that I am a big fan of Adobe Acrobat. I use it every day and consider it an integral part of my paperless practice. That being said, I recognize the Acrobat has a some flaws that I don’t like and that it is not inexpensive. Although, I will also note that, although no inexpensive, Adobe Acrobat is not really expensive when compared to specialized legal (or other industry) software.

Nevertheless, there are other options available. One of my favorites is from Nitro. In addition to their full-featured Nitro PDF Professional OCR (which retails for $119.99), Nitro has also released a free version of their software, Nitro PDF Reader, that does much more than just read PDFs.

In addition to just viewing PDF files, you can use Nitro PDF Reader to create PDF files, add notes to PDFs, type on PDFs, complete and save forms, and create and apply signatures. For a full list of what Nitro PDF Reader can do, click here.

There are a lot of things to like about Nitro’s PDF products. However, you can hardly go wrong trying their free reader and see how it works for you. If your use of PDFs is limited to viewing, creating, and filling in a few forms, then y0u may be able to meet your needs without spending a cent.

http://www.nitroreader.com

Recently I had the opportunity to preview a newly released product from Acrobat.com. This product, which is called Presentations, is probably best described as an online version of PowerPoint that is powered by flash. The product is still in development. Thus, it is not yet fully mature. However, I like what I see so far.

First, it works simply. If you know how to use PowerPoint, you will easily be able to handle this. What makes this product so great, however, is that it is part of Adobe’s online collaboration suite, which includes applications such as Buzzword (word processor), ConnectNow (online meetings). This means that Presentations is perfectly designed to allows people in different locations to work together to create a presentation, without having to email PowerPoint files back and forth.

I am quite excited about the possibilities that are being offered here. The ability to collaborate easily, and seamlessly with others in creating presentations is something that could be used by many people.

On the flip side, a couple of words of caution are in order. First the application is still under development, thus it does not have all of its features yet. Significantly, although you can display your presentation from Acrobat.com, the only way to display it when you are not connected to the internet, is to print it to PDF. Adobe has said that, in the future, they plan to have the ability to export to PowerPoint. That functionality is not here yet, however.

Additionally, you can work on the Presentation only when connected to Acrobat.com. Again, Adobe has said that they plan to add an offline feature (maybe something like Google Gears), however, that is not yet here.

In sum, I don’t think that the current iteration of Presentations is a game changer. However, if Adobe includes the full functionality that they are describing, it would not surprise me that, in the near future, many of us will be creating our presenetations on Adobe Presentations and meeting to talk about it on AdobeConnect.

At PDF for Lawyers, Ernie the Attorney also has some kind words about Presentations. Check out his thoughts here.