Adobe Acrobat Reader 9.1 Review

Bottom-Line: Overall, Adobe Acrobat 9.1 is a welcome enhancement to an already stellar and highly functional product.

I love Adobe Acrobat; the Reader and the Professional program(s).  The document collaboration software has made my life easier in many, many ways; e.g. it allows me to scan in all or download of our bills and important correspondence and store them in a universally accepted format (Adobe .PDF) for later retrieval and printing.  This has proved ideal for providing the often laborious number of documents needed to apply for a mortgage or car loan; instead of printing out reams of paper, I can just burn all of necessary paperwork to CD-ROM.

By now everyone should be familiar with Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files, they are everywhere, and they have become a staple of corporate and Internet file sharing.  Acrobat is now the defacto standard in cross-platform file sharing because the .PDF format is not platform dependant, its portable; i.e. as long as you have the Acrobat Reader-now up to version 9.1-you can read a .PDF file, and now even fill out .PDF forms.

But, first came the (free) reader; yes I said free!  The latest release of Adobe Acrobat Reader, Version 9.1, still allows one to view and print PDF files.  As THE open standard for worldwide electronic document distribution, PDF files preserve all the formatting, the graphics and the colors of the original document, so Acrobat users know they're delivering the exact same presentation to everyone.

What's New in Adobe Acrobat Reader 9.1?

The newest version of what is probably the most indispensable software product ever made doesn't introduce revolutionary changes, but instead offers up incremental changes, consolidates security patches and updates, and introduced compatibility with Windows 7. 

As the low-end PDF reader in the Acrobat family, Acrobat Reader 9.1 it is not packed with the advanced features of it retail breather, but this version adds the ability to play back embedded multimedia files in QuickTime, MP3, Real, Macromedia Flash, and Windows Media formats.  This version also replaces some of the icons in the default interface with optional, floating, but dockable toolbars.

Carried over from Adobe Version 9.0 is the ability to upload and share files with others via Acrobat.com.

Overall, Adobe Acrobat 9.1 is a welcome enhancement to an already stellar and highly functional product.  The program's ability to edit Adobe Professional generated forms and it compatibility with Windows 7 (64-bit & 32-bit) and Windows 2008,  is reason enough to upgrade to the newest version of what still is a free download from Adobe.