Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro review

Adobe's portable document format (PDF) is the leading format for sharing documents electronically, but Acrobat Pro has always felt more like a useful utility than a fully blown application.

Its ability to create PDFs, manage amendments and perform various other PDF housekeeping tasks is useful, but with so many other applications able to export in PDF format it's often the least-used application in Adobe's Creative Suite.

Acrobat 9 brings significant improvements not only to the application itself but also to the format and Adobe Reader. The biggest change is support for embedded Flash content. SWF files created in Flash Pro can be dropped straight into documents. It's also capable of converting video files from a range of formats into Flash Video (FLV) on import. We would prefer some encoding options, but the simplicity of this feature is a refreshing change from the complexity exhibited elsewhere. MP3 import is available, too, but other audio formats aren't currently converted on import.

Flash integration opens up lots of new uses for PDF, but we can't help feeling uneasy about its inclusion. One of the qualities we've always liked about PDF is that it's as close as a format comes to being digital paper. Flash integration dilutes this relationship a little, but it's a reasonable price for progress.

A new plug-in for Internet Explorer converts the current web page to PDF. The main application can capture entire websites or a specific link depth. It's a useful tool for taking a snapshot of a website, but the lack of support for JavaScript and Flash links mean it won't work with many websites. Its insistence on fitting content to fixed-size pages means a web page often spans multiple PDF pages, which looks messy. As such, it's not suitable for critical tasks such as sending a website for proofing. Toolbars are included for Word, PowerPoint and Excel.

Another major addition to the format is Portfolios. This is the ability to group multiple PDFs together, but it goes much further than the existing Combine Files option. A smart-looking welcome page presents the contents of a Portfolio as a series of thumbnails or a revolving carousel, but you can redesign or skin a Portfolio using Flash. Portfolios aren't limited to containing PDFs. Any file type can be embedded in a similar manner to an email attachment. Portfolios should be popular with anyone who needs to distribute collections of files with the professional appearance of PDF but the convenience of a Zip folder.

Other improvements include faster launch times, a real-time online-collaboration tool, improved handling of forms in creation and data processing and a print engine that brings benefits for professional printing. Acrobat is available in Standard (£265), Pro and Pro Extended (£619); the former lacks certain collaboration tools and form creation, while the latter adds support for 3D CAD illustrations. Acrobat Pro is also available as part of various Creative Suites.

Like so many of Adobe's products, Acrobat is hard to rate. It's expensive, but without any competition for the format it's an essential product for many design and print professionals. With its new Portfolio tool and Flash integration, many users who simply used Acrobat's printer driver to create files have more motivation to launch the application itself.