Adobe Releases Acrobat Client for Linux 478
DanMan writes "Adobe has released a reader client (Adobe Acrobat Reader 7.0) for the linux operating system. No news on open sourcing the client, but they're making a start. You can download the client from their site."
DUPE!!! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:DUPE!!! (Score:3, Informative)
It was already released then...
Still, they didn't mention the download location then, so I suppose it counts as the second half of the article with a generous portion of laziness in between.
Re:DUPE!!! (Score:3, Funny)
It's been almost a whole three weeks since that earth-shattering story... I'm sure most
Besides, as one TV network exec once said, defending reruns, something to the effect of "If you didn't see it first time, it's new to you!!"
Re:DUPE!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Now if only Adobe would bring Photoshop over as well...
Re:DUPE!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Well lets start with Acrobat writter, first. Porting Reader 7 is not a glowing support for Linux it is just a way to make sure PDFs stay in common usage. With Acrobat Reader 5 Getting very out of date and not as compatible as it was before. They need to give an update to the "Little OSs". It is just a way for them to go Yea almost any modern computer can read PDFs v7 and incorage companies to upgrade to Writer 7. This is not Adobee going HEY WE LOVE LINUX! it is more Ug I guess we need to throw Linux a bone here just so we can sell new versions of the writter.
Re:DUPE!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
a start? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:a start? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:a start? (Score:5, Interesting)
This Acrobat Reader 7 is significant because its the first quality and full featured Linux pdf viewer. It also shows that Adobe aknowledges the existence and importance of Linux and that the demands and complaints made against them about the situation did not go unanswered.
Re:a start? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:a start? (Score:2)
Also, it uses an old GTK filerequester, this could probably be fixed though.
Re:a start? (Score:3, Interesting)
However I haven't found a kpdf firefox plugin so I'm using acrobat reader.
Re:a start? (Score:5, Informative)
Try mozplugger. It will embed most any X proggy into a Firefox or Mozilla window.
Re:a start? (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/PHB_v35_c
with the labels for the 6 major stats intact.
Can someone who has already downloaded it try this for me?
In every linux PDF viewer I've used it displays on the screen, but when you print it the STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, and CHA labels are blacked out.
key mapping! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:key mapping! (Score:3, Informative)
Checked. They've added EcmaScript to the pdf, now it's possible to call websites with that. I think I read right here on
Re:key mapping! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:key mapping! (Score:3, Interesting)
This is actually a very useable PDF viewer. I've never been fully comfortable in Acroread 5, XPDF or GSview, and I don't like the pile of dependencies on GPDF and KPDF.
For me, Acroread 7 is the way to go. It'd be nice if it was open, but sometimes we just don't have that luxury...
Great (Score:5, Funny)
Solution for the Windows version (Score:3, Interesting)
EWH32.api
Search5.api
Search.api
after I did that and disabled the splash screen Acrobat reader 7 loads up nearly instantaneously on XP. I'm not taking credit for this, I found this tip somewhere I can't quite remember right now and it surely works!
Re:Solution for the Windows version (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Solution for the Windows version (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Solution for the Windows version (Score:3, Interesting)
On my Gentoo box, that's in "/opt/Acrobat7/Reader/intellinux/plug_ins", and it's only two files:
ewh.api
SearchFind.api
Great tip, starts much faster now.. I'm guessing AcroForm.api is needed for forms, but haven't checked. Seems to work fine for the few pdf's I tried it on though.
Re:Great (Score:2, Interesting)
37Mb??!?!?! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:37Mb??!?!?! (Score:4, Informative)
It is much much faster, has thumbnails and can search the pdf.
The only things its missing to catch up with kpdf 3.4 is remembering the site you were, bookmarks, and continous/doublepage -mode.
Finally! (Score:2)
I honestly don't care if it's open source or not. The reader is free, and that's good enough.
OT - I clicked "download" on Adobe's site, and RealPlayer tried to play the RPM! Strange....(Fedora Core 3, Firefox 1.02, RealPlayer 10.02.608)
More OT - FP?
Re:Finally! (Score:2)
It'll do that. I've never had RP installed and *not* had it do that by default.
Btw, how'd it sound? ;)
Direct link (Score:3, Informative)
ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/unix/7x/7.0/
Re:Direct link (Score:3, Informative)
Is there any problem with lumping it in the "Unix" category. I thought Linux != Unix.
Re:Direct link (Score:2)
Client? Where's the server? (Score:2)
I feel sorry for subscribers... (Score:5, Funny)
The Nod by Those in Grey Suits and Burgundy Ties (Score:2)
It appears by this announcement that Linux is being viewed by the world at large as a viable, everyday, grey-suited respectable OS. Who would have thunk it? I remember the days when it was the pap of those of us living in our parent's basements!! :-P
One step at a time.. (Score:3, Insightful)
I have used Xpdf exclusively for a long time. In what way is Adobe reader superior to Xpdf?
Re:One step at a time.. (Score:2)
it's release was duped on
*groucho*
nyak nyak nyak
Re:One step at a time.. (Score:2)
How about visual quality? xpdf renders even the nicest looking pictures like they are ultra-low-res web images. I use gv instead of xpdf because of that.
How about navigation? How about better handling of links? How about better text selection? etc. I'm still going to stick with gv, but Acrobat Reader certainly has things going for it.
Re:One step at a time.. (Score:3, Informative)
If all you're doing is viewing simple PDF documents, xpdf and its relatives are fine. But there are a few things the Adobe reader does that xpdf doesn't which I use all the time:
is this news? (Score:2, Redundant)
huh? a start towards what? (Score:4, Insightful)
What the hell? So is every commercial company out there just supposed to release everything as open source? Good grief Charlie Brown...why would they do that?
There are plenty of Open Source options for reading pdf's. There's no reason to expect/demand that a commercial software company should open source their products. I mean, come on people...enough is enough.
No Linux Acroreader yet. The next step... (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, actually, in this case, yes. Acrobat Reader is just that: a READER. It's doesn't hurt them to release it. In fact, it would bolster sales of their actual product: Acrobat. But more importantly, it's supposed to be a cross-platform format, and if they want to support that, they need to make an open, cross-platform reader.
Linux is more than just Linux/x86 on one or two distros, and open source is the easiest way to provide products for all of Linux. So they still have a long way to go before they've even done what this article suggests: releasing a Linux version of Reader.
Re:No Linux Acroreader yet. The next step... (Score:3)
I agree that if they open sourced it then the porting to other archs would be far easier, since other people would do the work for them. They don't 'need' to do that though. Sure, it would be nice, but it's hardly required.
much better than acroread5, not as fast as xpdf (Score:2)
For the lazy (Score:3, Interesting)
Acrobat Reader 7.0--English for Linux® (.tar.gz), 38.2MB [adobe.com]
Acrobat Reader 7.0--English for Linux® (.rpm), 38MB [adobe.com]
Speedy (Score:5, Funny)
Just a reminder about PDFs (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Just a reminder about PDFs (Score:2)
Re:Just a reminder about PDFs (Score:2)
I give a shit (Score:2)
Re:Just a reminder about PDFs (Score:5, Informative)
For those that can't be bothered to read it, in short, PDF's are designed for printing documents whilst preserving the original formatting as the author intended. Jacob therefore asserts that they're "unfit for human consumption" if you try and use them for something different to their intended purpose, in this case, online reading.
Next week Jacob will be telling us how washing machines are great for keeping your clothes clean but not very good for making cups of tea.
Re:Just a reminder about PDFs (Score:4, Insightful)
both good and bad (Score:2, Insightful)
That said, Any large commercial vendor releasing their software on Linux is a very good thing. Maybe next some more video game vendors will jump on the bandwagon.
And of course competition is always good. This forces both xpdf and adobe to make themselves better.
Open source not needed - open formats rule (Score:5, Insightful)
Spyware, Encumbered? (Score:3, Informative)
Using it, works well (Score:2, Informative)
Incidently, 7.0 seems to be a huge leap from version 5. Works much better with modern
Why should they open source it? (Score:3, Insightful)
Thumbs up...no crashes... (Score:3, Insightful)
v.5 did crash quite a bit, esp. the browser plugin. Very frustrating. It was comparitively ugly too.
Re:Thumbs up...no crashes... (Score:2)
For Debian users... (Score:5, Informative)
Christian Marillat has made available unofficial Debian packages of Acrobat 7 since a few weeks now. On sarge or sid, add the following to /etc/apt/sources.list:
Then it's as easy as apt-get update; apt-get install acroread mozilla-acroread. This gives you the core functionality and Web browser plugin. (Incidentally, there are a bunch of other useful unofficial debs there, including mplayer and lame.)
You can also install the Javascript plugin and a whole bunch of other Acrobat plugins with apt-get install acroread-plugins. However, be aware that some plugins may report back to the mother ship: LWN article [lwn.net]. Also, they will eat another 43 MB of disk space.
WARNING! Document tracking included (Score:5, Informative)
The software contains functionality that could cause serious privacy concerns - it is possible to include a tracking mechanism in PDF's, readers that this great 'feature' will then contact some website and keep track of how many people read that document.
Re:WARNING! Document tracking included (Score:3, Funny)
Re:WARNING! Document tracking included (Score:3, Insightful)
If I get some damn PDF in email, I certainly don't expect my PDF reader to report to someone else without my permission. Big difference.
Re:WARNING! Document tracking included (Score:5, Informative)
(a) disable javascript in the preferences (which leads to annoying popup requesting that you turn it back on *every* time you close).
Which leads to further suggestions to:
(b) Go to $HOME/.adobe/Acrobat/7.0/JavaScripts and remove "glob.settings.js". Create a symbolic link with that name to "/dev/null". That should stop the dialog box.
Or
(c) block the main site that it seems to talk to: www.remoteapproach.com
My solution was to:
(d) turn on the proxy settings preferences and point it to somewhere that won't resolve.
Re:WARNING! Document tracking included (Score:5, Informative)
iptables -A OUTPUT -m owner --cmd-owner acroread -j DROP
Why do they have to Open Source? (Score:3, Insightful)
So if Adobe released Photoshop for Linux should they OpenSource it? Are Oracle "only making a start" by supporting Linux because they don't Open Source their database ?
Wake up people. This is good news that people consider Linux a platform worth supporting. This isn't the "start" this is the game.
Re:Why do they have to Open Source? (Score:2)
Because if we wouldn't care about open source, we would use windows. Open source was born for something.
WARNING! "Unexpected features" (Score:3, Informative)
READ this before installing it: http://lwn.net/Articles/129729/ [lwn.net]
Remote Approach's reporting did not work when we viewed the document with Kpdf, Xpdf and Adobe Reader 5.0.10. It also failed using Apple's "Preview" application on Mac OS X. The document was still viewable with no apparent glitch in other PDF readers, but the reporting function did not work. However, when we opened the file using Adobe Acrobat Reader 7, Remote Approach started logging views from our IP address. After doing a little research, we found that Adobe's Reader was connecting to http://www.remoteapproach.com/remoteapproach/loggi ng.asp each time we opened the document
(Easy fix: Assign a IP which doesn't work ie: 0.0.0.1 to www.remoteapproach.com in your /etc/hosts)
Re:WARNING! "Unexpected features" (Score:2)
(Easy fix: Assign a IP which doesn't work ie: 0.0.0.1 to www.remoteapproach.com in your /etc/hosts)
Better fix: delete the files in $ACROBAT/Adobe/Acrobat7.0/Reader/intellinux/plug_i ns/ [1] (except for ewh.api; the Web browser plugin needs that one). There is no guarantee that the next PDF you get with embedded tracking Javascript will report back to remoteapproach.com instead of somewhere else.
[1] Space added by Slashcode, not by me.
I prefer xpdf (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I prefer xpdf (Score:2)
There are a couple things that bother me about xpdf.
It's rending of PDFs isn't exactly high quality. Even the best looking PDF pictures look low-res when rendered with xpdf. For this reason, I use gv for PDFs, as well as postscript files. Also, xpdf's dependency on motif is quite annoying. I continue to use older versions of xpdf, just so I don't have to bother with lesstif for that one program.
GTK except the printing is still crap (Score:3, Informative)
Also, (minor), the background color of the button bar doesn't adhere to the theme your desktop is set to. It's a darkish grey, not the lightgrey that's default on RedHat or Debian.
an unaccepted gesture (Score:5, Insightful)
don't moan that companies aren't trying to provide for linux users, if when they do release a product, you write bad reviews of it and criticise their attempts to get closer to a userbase they know little about, and can even fear.
Re:an unaccepted gesture (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure why anyone things we should bend over backwards to thank the creators of the proprietary versions for gracing us with their presence.
Because everything begins with small steps. Nero for linux might be trivial, but if what companies see is Nero trying to do something in the linux community and getting their fingers bitten off for not being open enough (which many companies who themselves might offer linux software also are unlikely to be), it is a strong disincentive to even try. And THEIR
Mutt (Score:2)
Security (Score:4, Interesting)
I'll stick with Gpdf (Score:2)
I use Gentoo on high end SUN hardware now (and some low end ultrasparcs) to deliver higher performance and security, if it was open source i would be able to compile it for my platforms.
I guess it's a blessing, I'm not tempted by the latest shiny thing by running on an alternative hardware platform.
Please, Sir, Can I have some more? (Score:2)
But three cheers for Adobe, hopefully they'll take that next step.
How to get rid of the toolbar banner advertisement (Score:4, Informative)
Drag any toolbar button on the line with the flashy advertisement down about half its height. This will make a new bar with only that button on it.
Next, drag the rest of the buttons down to the new bar.
Once the last button is moved to the new bar, the old one (and the flashy ad with it!) will disappear and your new ad-less toolbar will move up to replace it.
Locking the toolbars here will prevent it from returning the next time you start the app.
Re:old (Score:2)
What's the package? I can't find it.
Re:old (Score:2, Informative)
Re:old (Score:3, Funny)
You wear wraparound sunglasses, even indoors. You wish your mother would let you ride a motorbike. You tell your friends you're pulling in $50,000 a year and $2,000 a month "playing the stock market" but in reality you're only bringing in half that and your dividends from MSFT havn't been good in years. Your non computing friends all turn to you for help; you only charge $30 an hour. Your collegues talk about you behind your back. Your workplace nickname is likely to
Re:old (Score:2)
Because it had little to do with the story, and that *his* point was to mention that portage has had it for oh-so-long (nevermind that no one's done compiling it from portage, but I digress). The point is you don't see fedora users saying "You could get *name of popular package* from Fedora for a mo
Re:I... (Score:3, Informative)
emerge -C for you acrobat.
Re:Photoshop (Score:2)
Re:Photoshop (Score:2)
It will have crappy old static linked GTK / homemade interface like Acrobat, but people (sheeple) don't care.
It's not statically linked:
(Slashcod
Re:It seems to me... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:It seems to me... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:It seems to me... (Score:5, Insightful)
Closed programs, open formats is, to my mind, a reasonable compromise for a commercial organisation.
Re:It seems to me... (Score:2)
Re:It seems to me... (Score:2)
Re:It seems to me... (Score:2)
Re:It seems to me... (Score:2, Informative)
Quote from wikipedia page [wikipedia.org]:
Re:Open source Acrobat? (Score:5, Insightful)
The full PDF specification is available for free download from Adobe's web site. It's in PDF format, so in the worst case you would need to use their (free beer. Mmm. Free beer...) software to print it, but there is nothing stopping you from writing your own software to create or display PDFs. By doing this, they have helped make PDF a common standard, and associated the name Adobe with PDF. I work with PDFs a lot - I read and review material in PDF format, create PDF documents from LaTeX including images and diagrams saved as PDFs, and I don't use a single Adobe product.
Re:Open source Acrobat? (Score:3, Insightful)
Apart from the software patents [ffii.org].
Re:Ive used for some time (Score:5, Informative)
For the record, your post is basically a complete rip of this post [slashdot.org] by El Cubano [slashdot.org] with a couple of lines stacked in front of it. Moderators, please act accordingly.
I do not think behavior such as yours should be encouraged. Actually, I hope you'll reincarnate into some exotic frog, SCO techie, or worse.
OT: MDI (Score:2, Interesting)
I really got screwed by MDI yesterday (with a little of my own carelessness thrown in). I use Windows and MS Office as rarely as possible, but I had to put together a PowerPoint presentation for a talk. I had two open PowerPoint files, and each seemed to be in its own instance of the program - separate windows, separate taskbar tabs. When I closed the one I didn't need, the other one closed as well, taking about an hour's worth of work down with it. Granted, it asked me if I wanted
Re:OT: MDI (Score:2)
Re:OT: MDI (Score:2)
[begin quote]
Try this if you are at a Windows/Office box:
1. open foo.ppt
2. open bar.ppt
3. close the foo.ppt window with the X in the upper right hand corner of the window.
4. poof! both windows disappear.
[end quote]
No, it does not happens, it after having done that bar.ppt continues on its own window.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:No 64-bit version? (Score:2)
echo "app-text/acroread ~amd64" >>
emerge acroread