Adobe Acrobat is a family of application software and Web services developed by

Adobe Inc. Adobe Inc. ( ), originally called Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American multinational computer software company incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in San Jose, California. It has historically specialized in software for the crea ...

to view, create, manipulate, print and manage Portable Document Format (PDF) files. The family comprises Acrobat Reader (formerly Reader), Acrobat (formerly Exchange) and

Acrobat.com Adobe Document Cloud is a service from Adobe used to store PDF files in the cloud and to access them remotely. The services supports integration with Adobe tools to fill and sign forms electronically. Adobe Scan can take pictures of documents, co ...

. The basic Acrobat Reader, available for several desktop and

mobile Mobile may refer to: Places * Mobile, Alabama, a U.S. port city * Mobile County, Alabama * Mobile, Arizona, a small town near Phoenix, U.S. * Mobile, Newfoundland and Labrador Arts, entertainment, and media Music Groups and labels * Mobile ...

platforms, is freeware; it supports viewing, printing and annotating of PDF files. Additional, "Premium", services are available on paid subscription. The commercial proprietary Acrobat, available for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

and macOS only, can also create, edit, convert, digitally sign, encrypt, export and publish PDF files. Acrobat.com complements the family with a variety of

enterprise content management Enterprise content management (ECM) extends the concept of content management by adding a timeline for each content item and, possibly, enforcing processes for its creation, approval and distribution. Systems using ECM generally provide a secure ...

and

file hosting service A file-hosting service, cloud-storage service, online file-storage provider, or cyberlocker is an internet hosting service specifically designed to host user files. It allows users to upload files that could be accessed over the internet afte ...

Purpose

The main function of Adobe Acrobat is creating, viewing, and editing

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

documents. It can import popular document and image formats and save them as PDF. It is also possible to import a scanner's output, a website, or the contents of the Windows clipboard. Because of the nature of the PDF, however, once a PDF document is created, its natural organization and flow cannot be meaningfully modified. In other words, Adobe Acrobat is able to modify the contents of paragraphs and images, but doing so does not repaginate the whole document to accommodate for a longer or shorter document. Acrobat can crop PDF pages, change their order, manipulate

hyperlink In computing, a hyperlink, or simply a link, is a digital reference to data that the user can follow or be guided by clicking or tapping. A hyperlink points to a whole document or to a specific element within a document. Hypertext is text wit ...

s, digitally sign a PDF file, add comments, redact certain parts of the PDF file, and ensure its adherence to such standards as

PDF/A PDF/A is an ISO-standardized version of the Portable Document Format (PDF) specialized for use in the archiving and long-term preservation of electronic documents. PDF/A differs from PDF by prohibiting features unsuitable for long-term archiving, ...

History

Adobe Acrobat was launched in 1993 and had to compete with other products and proprietary formats that aimed to create digital documents: * Common Ground from No Hands Software Inc. * Envoy from WordPerfect Corporation * Folio Views from

NextPage NextPage, Inc. was an enterprise software company. Its headquarters were located in Lehi, Utah, later moving to Draper, Utah. NextPage developed a variety of information risk management applications to minimize document risk through information-r ...

* Replica from Farallon Computing * WorldView from Interleaf *

DjVu DjVu ( , like French "déjà vu") is a computer file format designed primarily to store scanned documents, especially those containing a combination of text, line drawings, indexed color images, and photographs. It uses technologies such as ima ...

from AT&T Laboratories Adobe has renamed the Acrobat products several times, in addition to merging, splitting and discontinuing them. Initially, the offered products were called Acrobat Reader, Acrobat Exchange and

Acrobat Distiller Adobe Acrobat Distiller is a software application for converting documents from PostScript format to Adobe PDF (Portable Document Format), the native format of the Adobe Acrobat family of products. It was first shipped as a component of Acrobat in ...

. "Acrobat Exchange" soon became "Acrobat". Over time, "Acrobat Reader" became "Reader". Between versions 3 and 5, Acrobat did not have several editions. In 1999, the

service came to being and introduced several web services whose names started with "Acrobat", but eventually, "Acrobat.com" was downgraded from the name of the family of services, to that of one of those services. Unlike most other Adobe products, such as members of Adobe Creative Suite family, the Acrobat products do not have icons that display two letters on a colored rectangle.

Document Cloud

In April 2015, Adobe introduced the " Document Cloud" branding (alongside its

Creative Cloud Adobe Creative Cloud is a set of applications and services from Adobe Inc. that gives subscribers access to a collection of software used for graphic design, video editing, web development, photography, along with a set of mobile applications ...

) to signify its adoption of the

cloud storage Cloud storage is a model of computer data storage in which the digital data is stored in logical pools, said to be on "the cloud". The physical storage spans multiple servers (sometimes in multiple locations), and the physical environment is t ...

and the software as a service model. Programs under this branding received a "DC" suffix. In addition, "Reader" was renamed back to "Acrobat Reader". Following the introduction of Document Cloud, Acrobat.com was discontinued as their features were integrated into the desktop programs and mobile apps. The GUI had major changes with the introduction of Acrobat DC in 2015, which supports Windows 7 and later, and OS X 10.9 and later. Version numbers are now identified by the last two digits of the year of major release, and the month and year is specified; the previous version was 12, but examples of the DC (Document Cloud) Acrobat product family versions are DC June 2016, version 15.016.20045, released 2 June 2016 and DC Classic January 2016, version 15.006.30119, released 12 January 2016. From DC 2015 the Acrobat family is available in two tracks, the original track, now named Classic, and the Continuous track. Updates for the Classic track are released quarterly, and do not include new features, whereas updates for the Continuous track are issued more frequently, and implemented silently and automatically. The last pre-DC version, Acrobat XI, was updated to 11.0.23 version (and this was the final release) on November 14, 2017, support for which had ended a month earlier on October 15, 2017. In September 2020, Adobe released a feature to make documents easier to read on phones called "Liquid Mode" using its Sensei AI.

Adobe Acrobat family products

Current services

is the web version of Acrobat developed by

to edit, create, manipulate, print and manage files in the Portable Document Format (PDF). It is currently available for users with a web browser and an Adobe ID only. *

is a software application for converting documents from

PostScript PostScript (PS) is a page description language in the electronic publishing and desktop publishing realm. It is a dynamically typed, concatenative programming language. It was created at Adobe Systems by John Warnock, Charles Geschke, Doug Br ...

format to

Adobe PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

(Portable Document Format), the native format of the Adobe Acrobat family of products. * Acrobat Pro is the professional full version of Acrobat developed by

to edit, create, manipulate, print and manage files in the Portable Document Format (PDF). It is currently available for Windows and macOS users only. * Acrobat Reader is the freeware version of Acrobat developed by

to view, create, fill, print and format files in the Portable Document Format (PDF). It is currently available for Windows, macOS, iOS, and

Android Android may refer to: Science and technology * Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system ** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...

users only. * Acrobat Standard is the standard full version of Acrobat developed by

to edit, create, manipulate, print and manage files in the Portable Document Format (PDF). It is currently available for Windows users only. * Document Cloud is part of the Acrobat family developed by

to edit, create, save online, print and format files in the Portable Document Format (PDF). It is currently available for users with a web browser and an Adobe ID only. * Fill & Sign is part of the Acrobat family developed by

to fill, sign, and manage files in the Portable Document Format (PDF). It is currently available for Windows, macOS, iOS, and

users only. * Scan is part of the Acrobat family developed by

to scan, crop, and manage files in the Portable Document Format (PDF). It is currently available for iOS and

users only. * Sign (formerly EchoSign and eSign) is part of the Acrobat family developed by

to fill, sign, and manage files in the Portable Document Format (PDF). It is currently available for iOS and

users only.

Discontinued services

* Acrobat Approval allows users to deploy electronic forms based on the Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF). * Acrobat Business Tools is a discontinued component of the Acrobat family that was distributed by

Adobe Systems Adobe Inc. ( ), originally called Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American multinational computer software company incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in San Jose, California. It has historically specialized in software for the crea ...

with collaboration and document review features. * Acrobat Capture is a document processing utility for Windows from

that converts a scan of any paper document into a

file with selectable text through OCR technology. * Acrobat Distiller Server is a discontinued server-based utility that was developed by

to perform centralized high-volume conversion of

documents to

formats for workgroups. * Acrobat eBook Reader is a PDF-based e-book reader from

. Features present in Acrobat eBook Reader later appeared in Digital Editions. * Acrobat Elements was a very basic version of the Acrobat family that was released by

. Its key feature advantage over the free Acrobat Reader was the ability to create reliable

files from Microsoft Office applications. * Acrobat InProduction is a pre-press tools suite for Acrobat released by

Adobe Adobe ( ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for ''mudbrick''. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used to refer to any kind of e ...

in 2000 to handle color separation and pre-flighting of PDF files for printing. * Acrobat Messenger is a document utility for Acrobat users that was released by

in 2000 to convert paper documents into

files that can be e-mailed, faxed, or shared online. * Acrobat Reader Touch is a free

document viewer developed and released on December 11, 2012, by

for the Windows Touch user interface. *FormsCentral was a web form filling server for users with Windows, macOS, or a web browser and an Adobe ID only. It was discontinued on July 28, 2015, and was replaced by Experience Manager Forms. *Send & Track (formerly SendNow and Send) was a service that lets you send files as links, track files you send to specific individuals, and get confirmation receipts when others view your file. It was completely discontinued as of July 11, 2018.

Hidden helper tools

* Acrobat Synchronizer is a tool installed along with Acrobat versions. While running in the background, it maintains the accuracy of Acrobat files imported to Acrobat. *RdrCEF (also known as Adobe Reader Cloud Extension Feature) is a tool bundled with Acrobat that runs a process that handles cloud connectivity features.

Supported file formats

The table below contains some of the supported file formats that can be opened or accessed in Adobe Acrobat.

Internationalization and localization

Adobe Acrobat is available in the following languages: Arabic, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and Ukrainian. Arabic and Hebrew versions are available from WinSoft International,

' internationalization and localization partner. Before Adobe Acrobat DC, separate Arabic and Hebrew versions were developed specifically for these languages, which are normally written right-to-left. These versions include special TouchUp properties to manage digits, ligatures option and paragraph direction in right-to-left Middle Eastern scripts such as Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian, as well as standard left-to-right Indian scripts such as Devanagari and Gujarati. The Web Capture feature can convert single web pages or entire web sites into PDF files, while preserving the content's original text encoding. Acrobat can also copy Arabic and Hebrew text to the system clipboard in its original encoding; if the target application is also compatible with the text encoding, then the text will appear in the correct script.

Security

A comprehensive list of security bulletins for most Adobe products and related versions is published on their ''Security bulletins and advisories'' page and in other related venues. In particular, the detailed history of security updates for all versions of Adobe Acrobat has been made public. From Version 3.02 onwards, Acrobat Reader has included support for JavaScript. This functionality allows a PDF document creator to include code which executes when the document is read. Malicious PDF files that attempt to attack security vulnerabilities can be attached to links on web pages or distributed as email attachments. While JavaScript is designed without direct access to the file system to make it "safe", vulnerabilities have been reported for abuses such as distributing malicious code by Acrobat programs. Adobe applications had already become the most popular client-software targets for attackers during the last quarter of 2009. McAfee predicted that Adobe software, especially Reader and Flash, would be the primary target for software attacks in the year 2010.

September 2006 warning

On September 13, 2006, David Kierznowski provided sample PDF files illustrating JavaScript vulnerabilities. Since at least version 6, JavaScript can be disabled using the preferences menu and embedded URLs that are launched are intercepted by a security warning dialog box to either allow or block the website from activating.

February 2009 warning

On February 19, 2009, Adobe released a Security Bulletin announcing JavaScript vulnerabilities in Adobe Reader and Acrobat versions 9 and earlier. As a workaround for this issue, US-CERT recommended disabling JavaScript in the affected Adobe products, canceling integration with Windows shell and web browsers (while carrying out an extended version of de-integration for Internet Explorer), deactivating Adobe indexing services and avoiding all PDF files from external sources.

February 2013 warning

Adobe has identified critical vulnerabilities in Adobe Reader and Acrobat XI (11.0.01 and earlier) for Windows and Macintosh, 9.5.3 and earlier 9.x versions. These vulnerabilities could cause the application to crash and potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system. There have been reports of these vulnerabilities being exploited to trick Windows users into clicking on a malicious PDF file delivered in an email message. Adobe recommended users update their product installations.

January 2016 warning

Adobe has released security updates for Adobe Acrobat and Reader for Windows and Macintosh. These updates address critical vulnerabilities that could potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Acrobat Adobe software Media readers PDF readers PDF software Proprietary cross-platform software Symbian software Technical communication tools Classic Mac OS software MacOS text-related software Windows text-related software 1993 software Computer-related introductions in 1993