» Adobe Acrobat 5.0 Upgrade [Old Version]

Adobe Acrobat 5.0 Upgrade [Old Version] Reviews

Customer Rating:
Summary: PDF Writer for Older Operating System
Comment: Delivery as expected. I appreciate such "older software" still being available through Amazon and this vendor. I will always have issues with newer operating systems: price of system and software and stability when using a wide array of software by various providers; so I am not inclined to upgrade operating system without good reason.

Adobe isn't clear on what version of their programs this upgrades, but it is NOT one of their "Acrobat and Reader" series. Thus I was delayed in using this purchase while I determined what program the Upgrade worked on/with. Perhaps this and other sellers can clarify the Acrobat/Reader dicotomy for potential purchasers. I found Adobe wasn't all that helpful or knowledgable. Online users manuals proved more informative.
I am the system maintainer and user (self taught).

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Merely a Stepping Stone
Comment: Since, for some unknown reason, Adobe doesn't offer a direct upgrade path from Acrobat 3 to Acrobat 6, I bought this Acrobat 5 Upgrade merely so I could qualify for a free upgrade to Acrobat 6. Not only is this silly of Adobe, it's also expensive. Instead of buying an Acrobat 6 package, sticking my old Acrobat 3 CD into the drive, and continuing on my way without further hassle or expense, I had to buy the Acrobat 5 upgrade, go to the Adobe website to find their customer support phone number, call them via their 800 number, get them copies of the receipt, pay a token shipping cost, and then install the new software. What's even worse is that I've spent over six weeks trying to do that. Amazon got me the package immediately. But, so far, I've had to talk to Adobe (at their expense) five times. The first time was to find out that the upgrade existed and get the instructions for faxing the information to them. Supposedly, my fax never arrived. Then, I had to talk to them about that and get a snail-mail address. Supposedly, THAT package never arrived. Then, with my next call, I managed to get an email address to send the documents to. Again, supposedly, that never arrived. Finally, I talked to a person who had me re-fax just the receipt and my Acrobat 3 serial number. She called me back within a half an hour and we completed the whole process (confirmed my shipping address and got a credit card number for the shipping fee). Besides the hassle I had to go through, this upgrade must have cost Adobe a bundle in phone and support personnel costs. The free upgrade period from Acrobat 5 to 6 is over now, but Adobe really needs to come up with a better way for their old Acrobat 3 customers to upgrade.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Absolute Aggravation
Comment: I ignored the various warnings by other contributors and bought 5.0 for an upgrade from 4.0. I had wanted (and tried) to load my old 4.0 into my new computer, but gee, what a surprise, macro error messages prevented access to Microsoft Outlook and other M/S programs because (apparently) XP Professional and Adobe Acrobat 4.0 can't quite seem to get along. (Planned incompatibility to force repurchasing?) Hence, I bought the upgrade. It loaded okay once I figured out that the serial number that wanted entered for 5.0 was really my old 4.0 serial number, although they specifically stated to enter the new 5.0 SN (which was rejected). At any rate, I got it loaded. Now, even after trying in vain to adjust preferences to minimize file size, when I create a pdf file from Excel the pdf file is 7.5 times as large as the original Excel file. This negates one of my main reasons for buying the thing in the first place since I want to email smaller pdf files of my Excel reports. I suppose if I were a geek I would chuckle at this problem and make some mystery adjustment somewhere and obtain the desired results. After hours of struggling with this, I tried to contact Adobe. The message stated that all their suppport personnel were in a meeting...Congratulating one another, no doubt, on their fine product. All I want is to be able to send a Word or Excel file as a decent-sized pdf file--which I could easily do with 4.0. I cannot begin to tell you how frustrated I am. I pay for everything, pirate nothing, and get this garbage for my efforts and expense. If you can do without this product, hold your ground.

Revised comments added a couple days dater: I did reach a very helpful tech at Adobe who quickly talked me through my problem with wanting smaller pdf files. If you need this info: (1) Select Print, (2) Select Adobe Distiller Document, (3) Select Properties, (4) Select Adobe PDF settings, (5) Select Conversion Settings, and then (6) Select the "Screen" option (assumes you aren't using fancy fonts, etc.) Now why didn't I think of that? Actually, on the 3 different occassions that I did reach techs, my wait proved to be minimal, and they all were helpful. But I still have a grudge against what for me is an over-engineered product that has taken a simple concept and turned it into an expensive and involved effort. If you live and breathe this stuff, then 5.0 will probably satisfy your various whims. But if you are an infrequent user wanting minimal functions, then you'll have to jump through some unwelcomed hoops. With Adobe Acrobat 5.0, one size fits all--and "all" means all those who eat kilobytes, megabytes, and gigabytes for breakfast, lunch, and supper. Those of us with big fingers and little patience won't be quite as enthused with the product.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: LESS Functionality isn't worth the money
Comment: Although pdf files are very useful in digitizing paper materials, the fact that Adobe crippled its 5.0 version of its Paper Capture (OCR, text recognition) functionality is shameful. When I purchase an upgrade, I expect BETTER functionality, not worse. With 5.0, you can only capture 50 pages of a document - if its longer than 50 pages, you must purchase the... Adobe Capture product. With the previous version (4.0x), there was NO limit to the number of pages and no need to waste more money. Do NOT buy this product - go... buy somebody's 4.0 version... (Note: the 4.0 version of paper capture does NOT work with Windows XP and no bug fix is provided...).

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Customer Rating:
Summary: LESS Functionality isn't worth the money
Comment: Although pdf files are very useful in digitizing paper materials, the fact that Adobe crippled its 5.0 version of its Paper Capture (OCR, text recognition) functionality is shameful. When I purchase an upgrade, I expect BETTER functionality, not worse. With 5.0, you can only capture 50 pages of a document - if its longer than 50 pages, you must purchase the Adobe Capture product. With the previous version (4.0x), there was NO limit to the number of pages and no need to waste more money. Do NOT buy this product - go to Ebay and buy somebody's 4.0 version for cheap. (Note: the 4.0 version of paper capture does NOT work with Windows XP and no bug fix is provided so you are screwed if you have XP).

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