Acrobat 5.0: Win9X/ME/NT4/2K

4 out of 10 - Mediocre
Bad execution of a terrific feature set
The capability of producing, storing and reading PDF files is key for my virtually paperless SoHo environment. Over 80% of ...
The capability of producing, storing and reading PDF files is key for my virtually paperless SoHo environment. Over 80% of my documents are stored (and backed-up) with Acrobat. Word, Excel, email messages, CADD and other electronic files are printed to PDF format via the Acrobat electronic printer (driver). Hard copies of documents are scanned and saved to PDF. Once a document is created in PDF format, the user can use the GUI portion of Acrobat to add/remove pages, edit/create text blocks, add watermarks, add images or video streams, add revisions or comments, lock down editing and perform a few other management tasks. I use this product to: 1. Save webpages for future reference. 2. Transmit information electronically (such as via email in lieu of faxing). 3. Provide formatically consistent document presentations (such as for proposals). Using the Acrobat full version, i can publish my documents, so that every user sees them the way i intend them to appear (WYSIWYG). 4. Archive and back-up hard copies of documents and images. This serves three purposes. It makes documents more accessible for future reference via my computer. It obviates the need for printing many documents, thus saving paper. It also enables me to dispose of paper versions sooner, relying on the electronic archive instead. However this program is difficult to manage. It requires some time for gaining familiarity with the editing feature set and user interface. They are mostly non-intuitive. Editing features themselves could be expanded to enhance flexibility (such as enabling the user to change the page order without removing and replacing pages, a ridiculous procedure). Worse still is the instability of the components (Windows 98 & 2000). Acrobat loads in the background when the user starts Windows, drawing on system resources and slowing down the boot process. It often causes crashes both during AND after printing and editing sessions. Indeed, as other reviewers have commented, another component does continue running in the background, after the user closes the program. This does seem to be a memory leak, which eventually causes the operating system to fail. The knowledgebase and updates seem to make NO difference in product stability. Overall this is a great resource for me. However i am dissappointed with what seems to be an incomplete execution. It costs me more of my time, than should have been necessary. Read more
June 18, 2003

3 out of 10 - Poor
If you use XP Office, avoid it.
Can't get distiller to work in XP Office. Seems lots of folks in the Adobe forum have the same ...
Can't get distiller to work in XP Office. Seems lots of folks in the Adobe forum have the same problem. Guess what? This is all I do with it. Like above, reloaded 4.0 Read more
April 11, 2003

3 out of 10 - Poor
PC needs upgrade for Acrobat 5.0
I think this program sucks up more power from PC especially that has 1999 model PC's. I recommend this ...
I think this program sucks up more power from PC especially that has 1999 model PC's. I recommend this to some people that has 900 - 1.8Ghz processors with no system resources like Win 2000/XP. Read more
January 15, 2003

2 out of 10 - Terrible
leaks resources and crashes Windows
Since version 5, Acrobat reader has failed to unload after use, leaking USER and GDI resources until locking up the ...
Since version 5, Acrobat reader has failed to unload after use, leaking USER and GDI resources until locking up the system in Win 95/98/ME. Read more
November 30, 2002

3 out of 10 - Poor
Very unstable
Acrobat sometimes just plain refuses to launch...I've had this same problem on PCs running NT4, W2K AND XP. ...
Acrobat sometimes just plain refuses to launch...I've had this same problem on PCs running NT4, W2K AND XP. The installation runs OK but running the app just gives you the splash screen for a few seconds and the obligatory background process, but no app! In all cases I've had to go back to Acrobat 4, which always works! Even the reader on its own causes problems! Read more
October 28, 2002

1 out of 10 - Abysmal
DOH!!!!!!
SUCKS! Screws up ur pc. Lots of software affected in bad ways. Slows down start-up, log-in, shut down and the ...
SUCKS! Screws up ur pc. Lots of software affected in bad ways. Slows down start-up, log-in, shut down and the loading of any game. Highly not recomended Read more
October 7, 2002

1 out of 10 - Abysmal
Anybody notice the memory leak?
Try opening a web pdf file, after you close that browser, check your background processes using CTRL-ALT-DEL...that ACRORD32.exe ...
Try opening a web pdf file, after you close that browser, check your background processes using CTRL-ALT-DEL...that ACRORD32.exe is gonna stay there forever Read more
June 9, 2002

4 out of 10 - Mediocre
Makes my PIII unstable, affects MS Word save, PC hangs on shutdown
Having all sorts of problems with Acrobat V5.0 on my PIII with Windows 2000 OS. Print to PDF file ...
Having all sorts of problems with Acrobat V5.0 on my PIII with Windows 2000 OS. Print to PDF file is unrealiable (sometimes doesn't work) At one stage, I could not save files in MS Word, even if Acrobat V5.0 was not open in a window!!! This also applied to my Win98SE laptop. Both PCs fixed by completely removing ACrobat V5.0. I'm going to go back to V4.0 for a while. Read more
May 10, 2002

4 out of 10 - Mediocre
A pricy dissappointment
An expensive, bulky piece of software that has quite a few annoying bugs/features. Ver 5 corrupted my "autoexec" (hidden ...
An expensive, bulky piece of software that has quite a few annoying bugs/features. Ver 5 corrupted my "autoexec" (hidden module) in MS Word, for eg. I found that installation of Adobe service-pack 5.0.5 was a hassle, on-line KB is weak, getting through to tech-support was a hassle, tech-support ppl were either asleep or on drugs, or both. I curse the product but I need it, so reluctantly still use Acrobat/Distiller. Read more
March 13, 2002

7 out of 10 - Very good
FINALLY BATCH PROCESSING
Batch processing has made my life so much easier. I don't have to go through 70000 pdfs making the ...
Batch processing has made my life so much easier. I don't have to go through 70000 pdfs making the same changes. this has givin me alot of free time to watch tv Read more
October 7, 2001