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Richard Treacy
Grand Master
Username: richard_treacy

Post Number: 1153
Registered: 4-2003
Posted on Tuesday, 30 January, 2007 - 22:35:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IP

Noting that some recent documents in the Technical Library are lodged in Adobe Acrobat Version 7, I have a general question.

Please bear in mind that the aim is that the documents are to be public, and we must cater for those who do not have, or do not wish to have, the latest version of Acrobat at any particular time.

When the Technical Library gained strength last year, the Webmasters advised us to lodge documents only in Version 4 or earlier, and to process the documents with optical character recognition (OCR). To this end, we have lodged most documents accordingly. In my case, they all start as Version 7 documents, then are converted to Version 4, then reduced in size and OCR'd during processing. There are quite a few other steps along the way, but the end result is a Version 4 document in, we hope, a manageable size. Typically, a 100 page chapter starts upwards from 30MB, and ends up at 4MB after processing and being ready to lodge. In short, an A4 page ends up somewhere between 20kB and 40kB depending upon its graphics.

The question is simple: could I please have some feedback from users on the preferred and acceptable version of Acrobat ? I am more than happy to lodge documents in Version 7, but would first encourage comment and finally request the approval of our Webmasters.

Many thanks,

Richard Treacy
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John Budden
New User
Username: johnb

Post Number: 6
Registered: 4-2006
Posted on Thursday, 01 February, 2007 - 07:36:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IP

I will put in my tuppence worth.
If newer versions offer more functionality and upgrades (for readers) are free we should consider using the latest version. We almost always get backward compatibility but not always forward compatibility.
While file size is an issue with some (including me in the Pacific with woeful download speeds) I would suggest that we do not sacrifice quality, flexibility and functionality too much for reduced size. ("The quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten!")
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David Gore
Moderator
Username: david_gore

Post Number: 697
Registered: 4-2003
Posted on Thursday, 01 February, 2007 - 09:27:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IP

Hi Richard,

In making my comments, I was obviously aware of the criteria used by you in creating the files and you may recall I also expressed a similar comment to the above contribution from John.

My observation is that most users of this site also download material from other websites and I believe there would be very few users who restrict the downloading to this site only. The PDF file is a very common format for down-loadable material and Adobe for very sound commercial reasons make a free "reader" available to encourage the ongoing use of this format and sell full versions of Acrobat software to the providors of the downloads. It is interesting Microsoft has since followed Adobe's lead by providing a "reader" for Word documents [Wordpad incorporated with Windows] and Power Point presentations [available as a free download from Microsoft]. I cannot see any reason why this situation will not continue in the forseeable future and free upgrades will be an integral part of their marketing strategy.

Adobe regularly update their Reader and whilst I do not use this as I have a full version of Acrobat; I would expect the Reader to include an automatic update facility. For this reason, I believe we can safely use the latest PDF format. To get around the problem of a user not having Acrobat Reader installed or an automatic update facility; we could modify the individual posts for each download to include advice that the latest Acrobat Reader is required to view the file and include a link to the Adobe download site.