Which ADOBE Acrobat package do I need?
Thread poster: Noni Gilbert Riley
Noni Gilbert Riley
Noni Gilbert Riley
Spain
Local time: 06:28
Spanish to English
+ ...
Jan 3, 2008

No doubt a similar question will have been asked in the past, but hope that my enquiry will be useful not just for myself: up until now I've survived with free Adobe reader downloads to read original documents, but now find it appropriate to provide translations in PDF format for clients. What should I buy? I don't see myself needing to do more than substitute text, ie at the moment I'm not after creating my own PDFs (I'll leave that adventure/learning curve for later). All comments appreciated.... See more
No doubt a similar question will have been asked in the past, but hope that my enquiry will be useful not just for myself: up until now I've survived with free Adobe reader downloads to read original documents, but now find it appropriate to provide translations in PDF format for clients. What should I buy? I don't see myself needing to do more than substitute text, ie at the moment I'm not after creating my own PDFs (I'll leave that adventure/learning curve for later). All comments appreciated. Thanks everyone, and Happy 2008 to all.

Beg pardon. I should probably be in Software rather than Office applications, but not sure how to move....

[Edited at 2008-01-03 17:28]
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Stephen Franke
Stephen Franke
United States
Local time: 22:28
English to Arabic
+ ...
Buy Adobe Acrobat (Standard or Professional Edition) Jan 3, 2008

Greetings.

Although various free-or-cheap softwares are available for working with, and producing into, PDF format, they have compatability glitches, so your end user / final recipient may not be able to open or display those quasi-PDF files properly.

Accordingly, my suggestion is to buy and install the full Adobe Acrobat package, either the "Standard" or "Professional" edition. Those would enable you to convert MS Word files fairly easily into PDF (via an internal dong
... See more
Greetings.

Although various free-or-cheap softwares are available for working with, and producing into, PDF format, they have compatability glitches, so your end user / final recipient may not be able to open or display those quasi-PDF files properly.

Accordingly, my suggestion is to buy and install the full Adobe Acrobat package, either the "Standard" or "Professional" edition. Those would enable you to convert MS Word files fairly easily into PDF (via an internal dongle that auto-installs and displays inside your MS Word settings), and insure comptability and conveyance with sucess of your PDF products.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Stephen H. Franke
English < - > Arabic, Kurdish and Persian
San Pedro, California, USA


[Edited at 2008-01-03 17:44]
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Anna Villegas
Anna Villegas
Mexico
Local time: 23:28
English to Spanish
It's not that easy as replacing texts... Jan 3, 2008

Though you may do it with Acrobat Professional.

See, if you want to provide your clients with PDF documents (I don't see why you should, if clients send you other applications as Word, Excel, or whatever), you may do this converting from any software supported by/to Adobe Acrobat.

I have Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Professional on my computer, and since many clients send me this type of documents to be translated, Acrobat 6.0 allows me to convert
... See more
Though you may do it with Acrobat Professional.

See, if you want to provide your clients with PDF documents (I don't see why you should, if clients send you other applications as Word, Excel, or whatever), you may do this converting from any software supported by/to Adobe Acrobat.

I have Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Professional on my computer, and since many clients send me this type of documents to be translated, Acrobat 6.0 allows me to convert to Word format. It's true that I can reconvert to Acrobat, but clients rather prefer Word in order to review and make any changes.

Should you wish to do a real professional PDF document for whatever reason, you'll need a DTP software like PageMaker, QuarkXpress, InDesign, etc. All these allow conversion into PDF. What I mean is this: Acrobat Professional needs a source DTP program. That's it.

PDF also allows you to convert scanned pages into pictures (TIFF, JPG, etc.) that you can OCR and convert to any word processing application.

Hope this helps.
Regards.
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Graciela Guzman
Graciela Guzman  Identity Verified
Argentina
Local time: 02:28
English to Spanish
+ ...
Same as Tadzio Jan 3, 2008

I use Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional in the same way Tadzio does.

 
Brandis (X)
Brandis (X)
Local time: 06:28
English to German
+ ...
Acrobat 9.0 is the latest... Jan 3, 2008

supports Uni-code as well. But version professional 8.0 is also not bad, slices large files into manageable chunks. While checking the web, I found a few that do reverse engineering for example. indisign .pdf to indesign DTP edition. That explains many things why the newer versions are better. Best regards, Brandis

 
Olaf (X)
Olaf (X)
Local time: 06:28
English to German
Creating PDFs isn't that complicated Jan 3, 2008

aceavila - Noni wrote:
the moment I'm not after creating my own PDFs (I'll leave that adventure/learning curve for later).
[/quote]
There are a lot of great freeware tools out there that make creating a .pdf file a snap. I like PrimoPDF (http://www.primopdf.com/) best. It installs a special PrimoPDF printer driver and all you have to do to create a pdf file is "print" your document with this driver.
Maybe you can use this tool until you decide which package you're going to buy.

Olaf


 
Jan Sundström
Jan Sundström  Identity Verified
Sweden
Local time: 06:28
English to Swedish
+ ...
Clarify please... Jan 4, 2008

aceavila - Noni wrote:

now find it appropriate to provide translations in PDF format for clients. What should I buy? I don't see myself needing to do more than substitute text, ie at the moment I'm not after creating my own PDFs


This statement is a bit contradictive.

As Tadzio and the other guys already said, you don't really substitute text in an existing PDF. OK, there is a typewriter tool in Acrobat that you can use to type in your tranlation beside the source text. But this is not a very convenient way to work.
And if you want to provide PDFs to your client, you need to create them first (they don't materialize out of thin air, right?).

So the modus operandi is this:
Translate and create the target document using any of the programs you're familiar with (Word, InDesign, heck - even Notepad will do).
Once you have a target document that looks fine, you can "print" it from any program you desire, by selecting Adobe PDF as printer (of course there are many different ways to create a PDF once you have Acrobat installed).

If you receive a PDF from the client and want to convert it to Word, I still prefer a dedicated OCR program. I've tried Acrobat many times for this purpose, and the results are always inferior to Abbyy (search the forum here for opinions).

But there are many other good features in Acrobat that makes the investment worthwhile. Se my recent post about how to optimize a scanned PDF, for instance.

Comparing Professional with Standard, I can only think of an handful of functions that would be useful for a translator:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/pdfs/acrobat8_matrix.pdf

1. The redaction tool, which allows you to "censor/blackout" lines.
2. Enable reviews in Reader (but there is freeware/shareware that can do that too).
3. Create PDF files that are larger than 200 inches
4. Compare two Adobe PDF files side by side to see differences

If you don't see yourself using either of these features, you might as well go with Standard.

/Jan

BTW, Brandis: Acrobat 9.0 is not out yet!


 
Noni Gilbert Riley
Noni Gilbert Riley
Spain
Local time: 06:28
Spanish to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Very helpful replies Jan 4, 2008

The contents of the replies have been very informative - and have revealed how little I knew about this kind of tool. My original idea had been that I would be able to change the text in a PDF format document as received in the same way as I would a Word one, but from what you are all saying, it's not as simple as this (it never is, is it?).

In the meantime I have noticed the prices of this type of software and taken fright, so I am, as I write, downloading primo as Olaf suggested a
... See more
The contents of the replies have been very informative - and have revealed how little I knew about this kind of tool. My original idea had been that I would be able to change the text in a PDF format document as received in the same way as I would a Word one, but from what you are all saying, it's not as simple as this (it never is, is it?).

In the meantime I have noticed the prices of this type of software and taken fright, so I am, as I write, downloading primo as Olaf suggested and I'm going to take a look at it. Not what I was originally after, but I am sure that this will be very useful.

Those of you who have greater expertise in this area than I have are very kind to explain things in simple terms for this ignoramus. Many many thanks for your know-how and for the time taken to pass it on.

A very Happy 2008 to all.

Noni
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Ritu Bhanot
Ritu Bhanot  Identity Verified
France
French to Hindi
+ ...
PrimoPDF and Wordfast PDF Convertor Jan 4, 2008

Hi,

I use this combination, one allows me to convert word documents to PDFs and the other PDFs to Word. Both are quite good so no regrets on that count. When I say Wordfast convertor, I mean the inbuilt pdf convertor.

Alternatively you can try the Scansoft pdf convertor. It is also quite good and cheaper than Acrobat.

Hope that this is of some help.

Best regards,

Ritu


 
Noni Gilbert Riley
Noni Gilbert Riley
Spain
Local time: 06:28
Spanish to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Thanks Rita. Jan 4, 2008

I've just finished installing Primo and am about to dip my toe in the water!
Happy New Year!


 
Noni Gilbert Riley
Noni Gilbert Riley
Spain
Local time: 06:28
Spanish to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Ritu, how rude of me to misspell your name. My apologies. Jan 4, 2008

And thanks again for your help and time. Noni

 


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Which ADOBE Acrobat package do I need?






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