Entirely off-topic denunciation of Acrobat 9 (edited)
[I'm leaving up this item in the hope of helping others.The solution to the problem below is to remove compression in the printer settings, and that means changing the defaults, whether you use standard or high quality or whatever, a solution that seems obvious in retrospect but which vexed me for six months.]
I'm hardly the first to observe that software development seems to have slowed to a crawl (hardly a surprise given the government-created patent thicket) and that "upgrades" can no longer be relied upon to constitute an actual improvement.
Here is a sample of what I mean. Using an existing PDF file and printing to another PDF file, at the highest possible resolution, with all the right settings, you end up with disaster using Adobe Acrobat 9 Professional. This was inflated by 1600% but you can see the absurdity. The workaround is to use a product from a smaller and more innovate and more customer-hungry company.
Comments (14)
filc
Example of closed source failing. Any technology that attempts to make a monopoly of itself ultimately will lack in quality and be overpriced. Need another example? Microsoft Vista.
I bet that little tool you used is vastly cheaper.
Published: May 26, 2009 2:35 PM
J Cortez
Personally, I try to never use Acrobat because there are faster, lightweight and sometimes free PDF software available.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PDF_software
Some are open, some aren't and quality varies but most of them, in my opinion, operate better.
Published: May 26, 2009 2:45 PM
Leonard Rosenthol
I would like to make two specific comments.
1) The problem you are seeing has NOTHING TO DO with resolution. The "artifacting" that you are seeing in the new PDF is due to the use of the JPEG algorithm for compression. See http://www.scantips.com/basics9jb.html for more information. The choice of JPEG was YOURS, in whatever settings you choose when you "printed a PDF to PDF"
2) The process of converting from one PDF to another via the printing process is called "refrying" and is NOT recommend by Adobe or anyone else. I have an old blog entry about it at http://www.acrobatusers.com/blogs/leonardr/why-refrying-pdf-evil or here is another person's at http://www.prepressure.com/pdf/basics/refrying.
If you need to process a PDF to apply certain corrections/optimizations to it, there are various tools on the market (from open source to commercial) that can do everything you can via "refrying" (and more!) without all the hassles.
Leonard Rosenthol
PDF Standards Architect
Adobe Systems
Published: May 26, 2009 3:06 PM
Jeffrey Tucker
Leonard is right. The problem is that JPG compression is the default, which must be new in this edition. You can change the settings in the printer driver and select. I tried it without and it works just fine.
My apologies. I'll leave up this item and edit it a bit.
Published: May 26, 2009 3:18 PM
Alexander S. Peak
I admit to not knowing a lot about the prevailing technological options. All I can say is that I've been using PDF Creator to create the .pdfs for my personal website. I just type up what I need into Microsoft Word and PDF Creator converts it to .pdf for me.
I've often wondered what you guys at the LvMI do, and if it's all that much more advanced than what I'm doing.
In any event, if I set my Microsoft Word page at 6" x 9" (the standard LvMI book size) and try to concert it into .pdf with the aforementioned programme, the .pdf comes out looking all wrong. But when I set my Microsoft Word page at one of the various standard settings (letter, legal, &c.), the .pdf comes out correctly. I really can't say why this is.
Yours,
Alex Peak
Published: May 26, 2009 3:28 PM
Jesse
Jeffery, I think you should learn about raster vs. vector graphics. That will help your understanding of what is going in your example.
http://www.nw-media.com/photography-articles/31/raster-vs-vector/
Here is a good overview.
I agree with your opinion that Acrobat 9 is poor quality, but for different reasons. My issues are feature and memory bloat, the update checker and sluggish performance.
Published: May 26, 2009 3:33 PM
Jeffrey Tucker
I think I do know about raster/vector but this was an image scan.
So long as we are complaining about Adobe, I'll add this: its bookmark nesting function is way too fussy as compared with previous versions. It takes twice as long to get it right.
Published: May 26, 2009 3:39 PM
filc
Actually I think this is a good example where the producer makes a silly assumption guessing at what the consumer wants. Why is the default set to jpg?
it's a good example of how unnecessarily overcomplicated this software has become. A small business accountant who wants to move paperless shouldn't have to learn about raster vs. vector graphics. This is ridiculous. This is just yet another reason why adobe is ridiculous as a software suite. I could go on for hours including their ridiculous updating process and bloated memory image size.
The very fact that I have to waste 10 minutes of my life looking up on google for blogs on how to print correctly with Adobe 9 is a testament of how ridiculous the software is. Save yourself the time and get something else. :)
Published: May 26, 2009 6:14 PM
Christopher Hettinger
I don't think Vista is that bad an operating system; but I guess the opinion comes from letting Apple do the marketing.
Personally, I'd rather have a Microsoft OS (or a Linux if available) than an Apple PC made of crappy proprietary parts than cannot be customized - and you better hope your Apple doesn't have one part fail because it'll bring down the whole thing AND you'll have to go to them to repair it.
Published: May 26, 2009 6:22 PM
Peter
djvu is better than PDF for scanned content anyway; you should look into that.
Published: May 26, 2009 7:40 PM
Conza88
Is it just me who finds it accommodating that a PDF Standards Architect from Adobe Systems addressed the issue quick smart? Service anyone? Haha
Published: May 26, 2009 8:06 PM
geoih
I'm no lover of Acrobat, either. Features in their older versions that were very useful have either disappeared or been buried so deep in the interface that you can't find them. For example, copying a table from a pdf and pasting it into a spreadsheet. Used to work. Now all you get is a jumble of tab separated figures. Thanks for that feature.
I'm sure there's probably some way to do what the old version did, but what was wrong with the old way of doing it (i.e., paste)?
Computer software interfaces are full of designs that are counter intuitive and un-ergonomic. Like putting the "close window" button right next to the "minimize" and "maximize" window buttons. Or putting the "Send" message button right next to the "To" and "Cc" and "Bcc" buttons. Very stupid designs, especially when you consider you're pointing with your fist.
Published: May 27, 2009 6:02 AM
Brian Macker
Jeff,
Please put a big bold Update:. I skipped the first paragraph because I wanted to get to the meat.
Published: May 27, 2009 7:52 AM
Wilhelm Raschke
We stopped using Adobe Acrobat because I noticed some odd happenings when I was using the program online. Turns out Acrobat is known for its exploits (holes).
http://www.google.com/search?q=Adobe+acrobat+exploits&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
I agree, updates make little difference. The program we use now is faster, safer and easier to use.
Published: May 29, 2009 10:29 PM