Apple Reviews

At the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Convention at the end of April (2001) in Las Vegas, NV, the most impressive software product being demonstrated was AfterEffects 5. Now, I'm an AE-user, and before NAB, I was thinking, "I really haven't driven AE past the surface in version 4.1 Production Bundle, I can't see getting the upgrade." After seeing the demo at Adobe's booth, I gotta say: "Do you take Visa or MasterCard?"

You have to move up several price ranges to buy into a compositing solution that does more than the newest release. The 3-D elements they were showing made my jaw hit the floor. The web sites and magazine reviews just don't give this product the justice it deserves. You need to see someone use it in a real-live application to see the true potential. AE5 will eliminate the barriers to entry for novice 3-D animators like how Adobe's LiveMotion did for people wanting to get into Flash.

This release is incredible. A must-have for the digital artist.

If you have little or no notion of Special Effects and animations or are a well experienced Designer or Animator, After Effects is THE animation and composing software for you. Get all you want and more with this product that goes well beyond the horizon. After Effects has all the features to make bick bucks and it's price will pay for itself in the first project Garanteeed!!! Get online and BUY IT (unless you're online allready)

The ultimate in motion graphics and visual effects creation. One caveat, it's very technical, so if you don't have experience with other timeline-based applications, it may be tough to pick up. I suggest you seek a class, such as at Multimedia Workshop: ......

I have been a devote used or After Effects for 6 years now. AE has never once let me down, and their upgrades have always been vast improvements over the previous versions (sometimes you didn't even know what could be improved in the first place, and Adobe would surprise you with something great).

This package is no exception. For the improved 3D capabilities alone, this package is worth the upgrade to 5.0. As usual, Adobe has attempted to merge the feel of its other step-siblings (Photoshop, Illustrator, GoLive, etc) into After Effects, and has in fact done so quite well.

Trust me: This is the same package that major motion pictures post-production companies use...the same package that is used in probably 90% of today's commercials... nothing is more straight-forward, well thought-out and just a pleasure to work with than Adobe After Effects. I highly recommend 5.0 to anyone.

I used seveal tools to great the things easyly created with this powerful tool.

This is the equivalent for Acrobat 5 of Business Tools as a cut-down version of Acrobat 4. So far Amazon have not described the number of seats you get but it should be lots, much cheaper than the one at a time download price at Adobe.
Forms filling is pretty boring but at least the design should look nicer with PDF unless you demand animation. The paperless office might be getting closer. Many organisations should be able to afford Acrobat at this price level.
5 stars should wait for an update which included markup tools. There is a basis for this in the eBook Reader version so why not? The full product is worth getting for PDF creation so would still sell anyway.

Have you ever tried to send someone a file, only to find out that they don't have the same program you do? What about, them getting a copy where all of the formatting has changed? Maybe you've asked them to revise, and you have to sort through and find all the corrections? All of these things have happened to me, and I'll tell you it's time to get Adobe Acrobat 5!

Adobe Acrobat 5, has the amazing capability of being viewed across platforms, so that you'll never need to worry that your Mac friend can't view the file created on your PC (or vice-versa). You also don't need to worry about different programs messing up your formatting, unauthorized users messing with your documents, or different programs refusing to open your documents! All the other party needs, is the FREE Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Acrobat is simple to learn and use. All you need to do is create your file in your favorite program, print the document (using the Acrobat Distiller printer included) and you have a new PDF file. Using this program you can convert virtually any file to PDF! Once in PDF format, set your security options, and send away. You can even use advanced features such as electronic signatures and highlighting, to work in an editorial environment (others will need the full Acrobat to view these kinds of additions).

Documentation for Acrobat is terrible! If you are unsure that you can learn Acrobat, I would recommend buying a companion guide for this product (Excellent product is: Adobe Acrobat 5 Classroom in a Book).

Once you begin using PDF, you will find that it is so practical and useful you won't know how you got by without it...

Version 5 has features I dreamed about in 3.0 and 4.0, but despaired of ever seeing. Adobe made my dreams come true. Here are the highlights that make this an essential tool if you work with PDF files or transform other documents into PDF format: You can now save files in rich text format (RTF), which can be directly opened and edited in Microsoft Word (and other applications). I was able to do this in version 4 with an expensive third-party plug-in that did not always produce the results I was looking for. Version 5 does not need the plug-in and does a much better job.

Two other features that I love are the ability to extract images from a PDF file and save them as Tiff, JPEG or PNG graphics. This is really powerful. A nice touch is the user interface, which now makes Acrobat's tool bars look like those in Microsoft Office applications. I thought this was a quantum improvement over the confusing interface in previous versions.

Adobe touts added security features in this version, but the only thing I found different is the 128-bit encryption. Version 4 gave me total control over protecting documents from alteration, selecting and copying text and printing. As a consultant I sometimes need to provide clients with intellectual property that I need to protect, and the features that I enjoyed in version 4 have been fully carried over in this version. Another nice feature that has been carried over from the previous version is the ability to open a web page from within Acrobat and save it as a PDF file. I have grabbed many pages from many sites for off-line reading using this feature and it still works without a problem in version 5.

Other features that are interesting, but I have not tried, include the ability to create and publish dynamic forms online, and support for XML form data. When I get time I plan to play around with creating and publishing the dynamic forms because I can think of a dozen uses on my web site.

Regarding the missing paper capture feature pointed out by a previous reviewer, I never used it, so I don't miss it. However, if it is important to you please heed the other reviewer's comments.

Overall this is a solid product that did not cause me the same pain I endured when I moved from version 3 to 4. Everything works as advertised and some of the new features are plain wonderful. The upgrade is something you will definitely want to invest in.

By the time I was done reading the reviews for Adobe Acrobat 6.0 I was depressed. Not only do I not have Windows XP, or Windows 2000, or NT installed in my machine (The only operating systems that will work with 6) I also couldn't muster up the confidence in the product after so many people were giving it the thumbs down. I want to create an eBook, and Adobe Reader is the most popular reader out there, with some 400 million, to a half a billion users with it installed. What a dilemma. I kept coming back to read some more. Finally I found the answer. I bought a new Adobe Acrobat 5.0 here at Amazon from one of their vendors, and it works great with my Windows 98SE. I planned on buying the 6.0 upgrade after they got the bugs out, and or I got a new computer with XP. Then I found out that 5.0 was the only version before, and that was the professional version. 6.0 Standard is a geared down version of 5. Ok, so it has some additional features, but it is missing all the rest of the professional features that 5 has.
So what's the skinny on the deal? For what I paid for a new 5 that is the full program, unregistered, and upgradeable, plus what I would have to pay here at Amazon for the 6 Professional Upgrade, I saved 80 bucks, and wound up with both versions 5 and 6 pro. Which as I mentioned are both professional versions. If I bought 5 and upgraded to 6 standard, I would only spend a little more for both versions. (About 4 percent more for standard, and about 20 percent less for professional) That way if 6 standard turned out to be as bad as many were saying it is, I would have 5 also.
In the final analysis, I am using 5 and am super excited about the new capabilities that Adobe Acrobat gives you. I'm hoping that by the time I get a new machine with XP on it, Adobe will come out with 6.something, or a second edition of 6 etc. with the fixes built in.
I'm not the only one to come to this conclusion. I noticed in the sales rank at the time I bought it and wrote this review, that 5 was outselling 6. Also I noticed that in the "Those who bought 5 also bought this" section, it had a special note that said, 47% of the people who bought 5 also bought the 6 upgrade. If your running XP, 2000, or NT, get them both. That way all the bases are covered.
Check out the reviews on 5 you'll be surprised how everybody raves about it. To be perfectly honest with you, if I had an XP machine, I would have ordered the 6 upgrade at the same time. Hope this helps.